"
The Gordon Highlanders were originally raised by my great-
grandfather, the fourth Duke of Gordon, in 1794, or perhaps more
accurately, by my great-grandmother, Jean, the beautiful Duchess
of Gordon. Duchess Jean, then in the height of her beauty,
attended every market in the towns round Gordon Castle, and kissed
every recruit who took the guinea she offered. The French Republic
had declared war on Great Britain in 1793, and the Government had
made an urgent appeal for fresh levies of troops. Duchess Jean, by
her novel osculatory methods, raised the Gordons in four months.
My father and mother were married at Gordon Castle in 1832, and
the wedding guests grew so excessively convivial that they carried
everything on the tables at the wedding breakfast, silver plate,
glass, china, and all, down to the bridge at Fochabers, and threw
them into the Spey. We may congratulate ourselves on the fact that
it is no longer incumbent on wedding guests to drink the health of
the newly married couple so fervently, and that a proportional
saving in table fittings can thus be effected.
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