Strange adventures of Lewis Gordon

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of Elgin, to Ludovick Gordon in Okenheid :
July, 1694, befor thir witnesses — James
Gordon in and David Innes in Oken-
heid.
1718, July 24 — Lewis Gordon was served
heir general to hie father.
Lewis says that he "keept ane hand with
a gentlewoman" in Elgin. This is an
euphemistic way of stating that he went off
with Anne Anderson, sister of Anderson of
Westerton, in Botriphnie, and wife of
Robert Gibson of Linkwood, to whom
Lewis's father had given a bond in July,
1695. Gibson was second heir to his father
Robert in the lands of Linkwood, Novem-
ber 4, 1684. "He had a yearly rental of
2500 merks, and was reckoned an opulent
man. He was unhappy in his marriage,
and his domestic troubles drove him mad.
He probably was naturally a weak-minded
man. According to the practice of these
times, when, lunatics were so cruelly
treated, he was imprisoned in the jail of
Elgin and became a raging maniac. In
the month of October, 1700, when the
Magistrates were in Edinburgh on business
before the Privy Council, Gibson set fire to
the Tolbooth in the night time, and there
being no means of quenching the flames, it
was burnt to the ground." (cf. Chambers'
"Domestic Annals of Scotland," ii. 239)
(From Young's "Annals of Elgin," p. 7).
On March 30, 1702, it was reported that
the "Lady Linkwood" was imprisoned by
the Magistrates' order until she made a full
confession to the Session. She was brought
from her own house by Alexander Dunbar
of Bishopmill, sheriff depute, to Baillie
Robert Anderson's house. She acknow-
ledged she brought forth a woman child at
Daniel Sharp's house at the East Ferrie of
Dundee ; the child still alive. She left it at
Couper in Angus in Alexander M'Intoshe's.
She refused to name the father. She
escaped out of prison. The case was referred