CHAPTER XXV. 



FRIENDSHIP AND COURTSHIP. 



DURING part of John's stay at Auchleven, Charles Black 

 lived at Keithhall near Kinnethmont, where he had come 

 to be gardener to Sir Andrew Leith Hay, in 1848, the year 

 before John returned to Gadie side. Being only a few 

 miles apart, the two friends renewed and extended former 

 happy intimacies. They often botanised together, as of 

 yore, generally bringing plants to each other, and comparing 

 their finds at mutual visits. John frequently remained all 

 night with his friend, and Charles once or twice stayed 

 with John, after a long day's hunt. The two slept together 

 in " the philosopher," where Charles made the silence 

 reverberate with unwonted jokes and laughter on the situa- 

 tion ; and he still recalls the sound of the animals below 

 them, crunching their food and stamping with their restless 

 feet. 



Charles had begun at Raeden to make a collection of 

 geological specimens ; but these John looked at with little 

 attention, for he was then too absorbed in the flowers, and 

 Aberdeen is barren in fossils, which Charles afterwards 

 obtained in the greatest abundance and beauty on the 

 shores of the Solway. Geology was a subject John by-and- 



