Guy Mannering.

18 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
beginning of the fifteenth century, and vagrants of Eu.
ropean descent.
The individual gipsy upon whom the character of
-gleg Merrilies was founded, was well known about the
middle of the last century, by the name of Jean Gordon,
an inhabitant of the village of Kirk Yetholm, in the
Cheviot hills, adjoining to the English Border. The
author gave the public some account of this remarkable
person, in one of' the early Numbers of Blackwood's
Magazine, to the following purpose:"My father remembered old Jean Gordon of Yetholm,
who had great sway among her tribe. She was quite a
Meg Merrilies, and possessed the savage virtue of fidelity
in the same perfection. Having been often hospitably
received at the farm-house of Lochside, near Yetholm,
she had carefully abstained from committing any depredations on the farmer's property. But her sons (nine in'number) had not, it seems, the same delicacy, and stole
a brood-sow from their kind entertainer. Jean was
mortified at this ungrateful conduct, and so much ashamed
of it, that she absented herself from Lochside for several
years.;" It happened, in course of time, that in consequence
of some temporary pecuniary necessity, the Goodman of
Lochside was obliged to go to Newcastle to raise some
money to pay his rent. He succeeded in his purpose,
but returning through the mountains of Cheviot, he was
benighted and lost his way.
"A light glimmering through the window of a large
waste barn, which had survived the farm-house to which
it had once belonged, guided him to a place of shelter;
and when he knocked at the door, it was opened by Jean
Gordon. Her very remarkable figure, for she was nearly