Guy Mannering.

GUY TIANNERING. 23
same article in which her mother Jean is mentioned, but
not by the present writer:"The late Madge Gordon was at this time accounted
the Queen of the Yetholm clans. She was, we believe,
a grand-daughter of the celebrated Jean Gordon, and was
said to have much resembled her in appearance. The
following account of her is extracted from the letter of a'friend, who for many years enjoyed frequent and favourable opportunities of observing the characteristic peculiarities of the Yetholm tribes:-' Madge Gordon was
descended from the Faas by the mother's side, and was
married to a Young. She was a remarkable personage
-of a very commanding presence, and high stature,
being nearly six feet high. She had a large aquiline
nose,-penetrating eyes, even in her old age,-bushy hair,
that hung around her shoulders from beneath a gipsy
bonnet of straw,-a short cloak of a peculiar fashion, and
a long staff nearly as tall as herself. I remember her
well; —every week she paid my father a visit for her
awmouts, when I was a little boy, and I looked upon
Madge with no common degree of awe and terror. When
she spoke vehemently, (for she made loud complaints,)
she used to strike her staff upon the floor, and throw
herself into an attitude which it was impossible to regard
with indifference. She used to say that she could bring,
from the remotest parts of the island, friends to revenge
her quarrel, while she sat motionless in her cottage; and
she frequently boasted that there was a time when she
was of still more considerable importance, for there were
at her wedding fifty saddled asses, and unsaddled lasses
without number. If Jean Gordon was the prototype of
the clhracter of Meg uMerrilies, I imagine Madge must
have sat to the unknown author as the representative of
her person.' "-(Blackwood's lciagazine, vol. i. p. 56.)