2l6 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



a skittish allusion to the sanctity claimed by the dis- 

 senters. But banter on such important subjects was a 

 grievance with John, and at last they had to agree, for the 

 sake of peace and friendship, to let theology become a 

 moot subject between them. 



Aberdeenshire was one of the strongholds of the Estab- 

 lishment, and the Vale of Alford was as conservative as 

 any part of the county. As John used to say, " they were 

 terrible bun' up to the Establishment." The keenness of 

 feeling between the adherents of the two parties in the 

 district was so great that, for a long time, as he remarked, 

 " they had eneuch ado to speak to each other ; " and this 

 was the case all over the country for many years. In the 

 whole presbytery of Alford, not a single clergyman left the 

 Church except one, the Rev. Harry Nicol, then a school- 

 master and now Free Church minister at Lumsden in 

 Auchindore. In the parish of Tough, the popularity of the 

 clergyman, the late Mr. Gillan of Alford, was such that 

 very few seceded, and of these only one elder, Moses 

 Copland, the farmer of Boghead. The opposition of the 

 Aberdeenshire proprietors was so great that, in most places, 

 they would not grant sites for the new Free churches, and 

 even, in many cases, threatened eviction to seceding tenants. 

 It was the same in the Vale, and the Free Church congre- 

 gation of Tough and Keig long worshipped in the barns of 

 Boghead and of Tillykeerie, where Charles Hunter's father 

 lived, on the slopes south of Netherton. Meetings were 

 held in various parts of the district by the friends of the 

 Free Church, which were addressed by several of their 

 most popular orators. Amongst others came Dr. Guthrie, 

 who held a large gathering at the inn of Muggart Haugh, 



