acquired by purchase the estate of Hallgreen, in the parish of Bervie, and was followed in its possession by his nephew, James Farquhar, father of the present laird. Though a man of great generosity, and a liberal benefactor of the poor, Mr Farquhar was characterised by strict and careful habits in all his transactions. An anecdote has been told in illustration of these points of his character. When a coachman he had engaged in London was rendering his first weekly account, it was twopence short of balancing, and he taxed his memory in vain to account for the deficit. Somewhat to his surprise, the matter was remanded for next week's consideration, and he was told to find out the mistake if he could. He spent the next day or two puzzling his mind over the lost twopence, and what appeared to him the excessive strictness of his master. Before the close of the week he had occasion to be driving through a turnpike, the toll of which was twopence, and it suddenly occurred to him that the previous week he had the same transaction, which he had failed to enter into his account. In due time the explanation was made, his conduct approved, and his second week's account found correct, when a handsome gratuity was put into his hands, as a token of his master's satisfaction with his fortnight's services, but along with it a caution to be strictly careful of every penny he disbursed. He continued many years in Mr Farquhar's service, and used to relate the anecdote with the assurance that it was one of the best lessons he had ever been taught.

Mr Farquhar died at his residence in Westminster on 4th September 1833; and he was buried within the Church of St Bennett's, Doctors' Commons, Lon

don. The poor of Laurencekirk were not forgotten in his settlement, a sum of £500 being bequeathed to the kirk-session on their behalf.

Mrs Farquhar continued for a number of years to occupy Johnston Lodge as her residence during part of the year. On one day, above all days in the year, her presence was a source of pleasure to the youth of Laurencekirk. It was the annual examination of the parish school, when it always seemed an open question whether she enjoyed herself or imparted to others the most exquisite delight, in the variety of prizes which passed from her hands to the successful competitors of the day. Mrs Farquhar removed from Johnston about 1845 to Aberdeen, where she resided until the time of her death.

Alexander Gibbon, advocate in Aberdeen, succeeded to the possession of Johnston on the death of his uncle, Mr Farquhar. He was the only son of Captain Charles Gibbon, merchant burgess of Aberdeen, and his second wife, Rachel Susan Farquhar. He studied at Marischal College, and became a graduate of the University. Having qualified for the legal profession, he was admitted into the Society of Advocates of Aberdeen in 1817, and was for a number of years in practice in the city.

Mr Gibbon in 1835 married Margaret Allardice Innes, and after several years of Continental travel took up his residence at Johnston Lodge. His genial manner and amiable disposition soon won the esteem of his neighbours, and the affection of all over whom his territorial influence extended. He removed to Edinburgh in 1852, and his later years were spent chiefly in the metropolis, where he died on the 14th of Sep

tember 1877. His remains were interred at Laurencekirk, in the ground attached to the Episcopal Chapel.

Mrs Gibbon, who has shared the esteem of friends and the affection of dependants which were so long bestowed upon her husband, continues to reside in Edinburgh.

Elizabeth Abercromby Gibbon, their only child, was born on the 7th of December 1842. In 1860 she became the wife of David Alexander Pearson of Northcliffe, who was admitted in 1850 into the Society of Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh.

Mrs Pearson, through her maternal grandmother, is a direct representative of the line of Barclay of Mathers. Her succession to the estate gave to the number of landed proprietors in the parish a lineal descendant of John, brother of Humphrey de Berkeley, the earliest one on record, whose possessions in the twelfth century included a portion of the lands which are now attached to Johnston.

It may be interesting to add that Mrs Pearson belongs to the twenty-second generation of the race of Barclays, reckoning from John de Berkeley. Mrs Johnston of Kair and Redmyre is also in the twentysecond generation, though nearly three hundred years have elapsed since the separation of the lines to which the respective families belong. And those two are not the only instances in these pages to be cited in proof of the well-known genealogical fact, that the average length of a generation is about thirty years.

PART SECOND.

HISTORY OF THE BURGH.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LAURENCEKIRK.

THE credit of having founded the village of Laurencekirk, as well as of having erected the burgh, has usually been given to Lord Gardenstone; but, though his lordship's merits were great in the way of enlargement and improvement, it is certain that the village was in existence more than a century before he had acquired an interest in the parish.

In another chapter appears the earliest record extant of "Kirktoun of Conveth, otherwise called St Laurance." The reference is to a charter of 1646, which among other things annexed the Kirkton to the burgh of Haulkerton. It is not unlikely that the alternative name "St Laurance" had been employed from that date to designate the village. The name of Laurencekirk must have been in common use during Ruddiman's official connection with

the parish, 1695-1700-the first edition of his Rudiments bearing on the title-page that he had been "sometime schoolmaster at Laurencekirk." It was then a village with an inn, under the roof of which the celebrated Dr Pitcairne was glad to shelter himself; and it may have been more than the inconsiderable hamlet represented by the biographer of the grammarian, considering the Doctor's inquiry at the hostess after some one to share his dinner and interchange conversation.

The first occurrence of the name of "Laurancekirk" in the presbytery records is under date 10th September 1701, after which, with one or two exceptions, the name of Conveth is dropped. It may be presumed that the village had given its name to the parish about that time,-a circumstance, too, indicating that it had acquired larger proportions and been of longer standing than is generally supposed.

Being situated on the very border of the Haulkerton estate, the village was likely to extend in course of time to the lands of Johnston. By-and-by the name of Laurencekirk was applied to the whole village; but there appears to have been two separate villages in existence in the early years of the eighteenth century one the Kirkton of Conveth, the other Laurencekirk, the original village on the Haulkerton estate. A minute of kirk-session records, of date 25th March 1712, that "James Nairn in Brintone, and Arthur Shepherd, Mert. att Laurencekirk, gave an oak plank to be a Bridge att the Kirktown, and would have nothing for it."

A statistical account of the village gives its pop