VISITS TO ABERDEEN ECCENTRICITY. 365 



plants they had gathered, and the new subjects they had 

 entered on. They parted in affectionate sadness and with 

 small hope of meeting again, with their gathering years ; 

 for John was now seventy, and Charles lived far off on the 

 borders of England. They never did meet, though the 

 elder survived for seventeen years ; but they continued to 

 correspond to the last, united by deathless friendship. 



Charles Black had long wished to have a portrait of his 

 old friend, and this desire increased greatly after their last 

 parting, in the fear that he might pass away before such a 

 memorial could be secured. He accordingly wrote to his 

 brother to try to get John to sit for his photograph, hoping 

 that his brother's friendly adroitness would effectually 

 overcome John's natural timidity under such unaccustomed 

 conditions, and his inevitable objections to the necessary 

 preparations and actual process. James by-and-by got 

 him to consent to gratify Charles, for whom, as he used to 

 say, he " wu'd hae dune onything for Charlie was nae 

 common freend." Accordingly, in September, 1866, in his 

 seventy-second year, an appointment was made for John 

 to come to Aberdeen for the purpose ; but, as James told 

 Charles, had he not had a liking for John's portrait 

 himself, he feared that, fond as he was of pleasing his 

 brother, he could not have gone through the ordeal of 

 bringing the matter to a successful issue. "John was an 

 awkward fellow," he observes, " in the street ; but in a 

 photographic studio, he was absolutely unmanageable and 

 absurd." 



John came to town one Saturday, bringing Mr. Black 

 a collection of grasses, tied with hundreds of thrums to a 

 strong willow wand, according to his good custom with 



