'Before quitting the Border gipsies, I may mention that my grandfather,
while riding over Charterhouse Moor, then a very extensive common, fell
suddenly among a large band of them, who were carousing in a hollow of
the moor, surrounded by bushes. They instantly seized on his horse's
bridle with many shouts of welcome, exclaiming (for he was well known
to most of them) that they had often dined at his expense, and he must
now stay and share their good cheer. My ancestor was, a little alarmed,
for, like the goodman of Lochside, he had more money about his person
than he cared to risk in such society. However, being naturally a bold,
lively-spirited man, he entered into the humour of the thing and sate
down to the feast, which consisted of all the varieties of game,
poultry, pigs, and so forth that could be collected by a wide and
indiscriminate system of plunder. The dinner was a very merry one; but
my relative got a hint from some of the older gipsies to retire just
when--
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious,
and, mounting his horse accordingly, he took a French leave of his
entertainers, but without experiencing the least breach of hospitality.
I believe Jean Gordon was at this festival.'[Footnote: Blackwood's
Magazine, vol. I, p. 54]
Notwithstanding the failure of Jean's issue, for which
Weary fa' the waefu' wuddie,
a granddaughter survived her, whom I remember to have seen. That is, as
Dr. Johnson had a shadowy recollection of Queen Anne as a stately lady
in black, adorned with diamonds, so my memory is haunted by a solemn
remembrance of a woman of more than female height, dressed in a long
red cloak, who commenced acquaintance by giving me an apple, but whom,
nevertheless, I looked on with as much awe as the future Doctor, High
Church and Tory as he was doomed to be, could look upon the Queen. I
conceive this woman to have been Madge Gordon, of whom an impressive
account is given in the same article in which her mother Jean is
mentioned, but not by the present writer:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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