Note {13} — HISTORY OF SIR CONOLLY RACKRENT

GOSSOON: a little boy—from the French word garçon. In most Irish families there used to be a barefooted gossoon, who was slave to the cook and the butler, and who, in fact, without wages, did all the hard work of the house. Gossoons were always employed as messengers. The Editor has known a gossoon to go on foot, without shoes or stockings, fifty-one English miles between sunrise and sunset.