Note 96 — Chapter V

In Oliver and Boyd’s Scottish Tourist, (1832), page 181, occurs the following passage: “A singular set of vagrants existed long in Falkland, called Scrapies, who had no other visible means of existence than a horse or a cow. Their ostensible employment was the carriage of commodities to the adjoining villages, and in the intervals of work they turned out their cattle to graze on the Lomond Hill. Their excursions at night were long and mysterious, for the pretended object of procuring coals, but they roamed with their little carts through the country-side, securing whatever they could lift, and plundering fields in autumn. Whenever any enquiry was addressed to a Falkland Scrapie as to the support of his horse, the ready answer was, ‘Ou, he gangs up the (Lomond) Hill, ye ken.’ This is now prevented; the Lomond is enclosed, and the Scrapies now manage their affairs on the road-sides.”

The people mentioned in this extract are doubtless those to whom our author alludes. The reader will notice some resemblance between them and the tribe in the Pyrenees, as described at page 87.—Ed.

[97] Yetholm lies in a valley which, surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains, seems completely sequestered from the rest of the world—alike inaccessible from without, and not to be left from within. The valley has, however, more than one outlet.—Chambers’ Gazetteer of Scotland.—Ed.

[98] In Hungary, their houses, which are always small, and poor in appearance, are commonly situated in the outskirts of the village, and, if possible, in the neighbourhood of some thicket or rough land.—Bright.—ED.

[99] This woman is most probably dead, and the same may be said of some of the other characters mentioned in this and other chapters.—Ed.

[100] Young was chased for nearly thirty miles, by Highlanders, on foot, and General Gordon of Cairnfield, and others, on horseback; and, as he was frequently in view, the affair much resembled a fox-hunt. The hounds were most of them game-keepers—an active race of men; and so exhausted were they, before the Gipsy was caught, that they were seen lying by the springs, lapping water with their tongues, like dogs.—Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.

[101] Our author says that the Life of Peter Young was published. The following particulars, quoted in an account of the Gipsies, in the sixteenth volume of Chambers’ Miscellany, are probably taken from that source:

“Peter was Captain of a band well known in the north of Scotland, where his exploits are told to this day. Possessed of great strength of body, and very uncommon abilities, he was a fine specimen of his race, though he retained all their lawless propensities. He was proud, passionate, revengeful, a great poacher, and an absolute despot, although a tolerably just one, over his gang, maintaining his authority with an oak stick, the principal sufferers from which were his numerous wives.”—“He esteemed himself to be a very honourable man, and the keepers of the different public-houses in the country seem to have thought that, to a certain extent, he was so. He never asked for trust as long as he had a half-penny in his pocket. At the different inns which he used to frequent, he was seldom or never denied anything. If he pledged his word that he would pay his bill the next time he came that way, he punctually performed his promise.”

“Peter’s work was that of a very miscellaneous nature. It comprehended the profession of a blacksmith, in all its varieties, a tin-smith, and brazier. His original business was to mend pots, pans, kettles, &c., of every description, and this he did with great neatness and ingenuity. Having an uncommon turn for mechanics, he at last cleaned and repaired clocks and watches. He could also engrave on wood or metal; so also could his brother John; but where they learned any of these arts I never heard. Peter was very handy about all sorts of carpenter work, and occasionally amused himself, when the fancy seized him, in executing some pieces of curious cabinet work that required neatness of hand. He was particularly famous in making fishing-rods, and in the art of fishing he was surpassed by few.”

Immediately before one of the days fixed for his execution, he seized the jailer, and, upon the threat of instant death, compelled him to lay on his back, as one dead, till he had set at liberty every one in the prison, himself being the last to leave the building. After travelling twenty-four miles, he went to sleep in the snow, and was apprehended by a company of sportsmen, whose dogs had made a dead set at him. On being taken to the gallows, one of the crowd cried: “Peter, deny you are the man!”—which he did, declaring that his name was John Anderson, and wondered what the people wanted with him. And there being none present who could identify him, although he was well known in Aberdeen, he managed to get off clear.—Ed.

[102] Besides getting themselves out of scrapes in such an adroit manner, the Scotch Gipsies have been known to serve a friend, when innocently placed in a position of danger. It happened once that Billy Marshall, the Gipsy chief in Gallowayshire, attacked and robbed the laird of Bargally, and in the tussle lost his cap. A respectable farmer, passing by, some time afterwards, picked up the cap, and put it on his head. The laird, with his mind confused by the robbery and the darkness combined, accused the farmer of the crime; and it would have gone hard with him at the trial, had not Billy come to his rescue. He seized the cap, in the open court, and, putting it on his head, addressed the laird: “Look at me, sir, and tell me, by the oath you have sworn, am not I the man that robbed you?”—“By heaven! you are the very man.”—“You see what sort of memory this gentleman has,” exclaimed the Gipsy; “he swears to the bonnet, whatever features are under it. If you, yourself, my lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to swear that your lordship was the person who robbed him.” The farmer was unanimously acquitted.

Notwithstanding Billy’s courage in “taking care of the living,” an anecdote is related of his having been frightened almost out of his wits, under very ludicrous circumstances. He and his gang had long held possession of a cavern in Gallowayshire, where they usually deposited their plunder, and sometimes resided, secure from the officers of the law. Two Highland pipers, strangers to the country, happened to enter it, to rest themselves during the night. They perceived, at once, the character of its absent inhabitants; and they were not long within it, before they were alarmed by the voices of a numerous band advancing to its entrance. The pipers, expecting nothing but death from the ruthless Gipsies, had the presence of mind to strike up a pibroch, with tremendous fury; at the terrific reception of which—the yelling of the bag-pipes issuing from the bowels of the earth—Billy and his gang precipitately fled, as before a blast from the infernal regions, and never afterwards dared to visit their favourite haunt. The pipers, as might naturally be expected, carried off, in the morning, the spoils of the redoubted Gipsies.—Sir Walter Scott.—Ed.

[103] It is interesting to notice that the three criminals who gave occasion to the Porteous mob, in 1736, were named Stewart, Wilson and Robertson. They were doubtless Gipsies of the above mentioned clans. Their crimes and modes of escape were quite in keeping with the character of the Gipsies.—Ed.

[104] Grellmann, in giving an account of the attire of the poorer kind of Hungarian Gipsies, says: We are not to suppose however that they are indifferent about dress; on the contrary, they love fine clothes to an extravagant degree. Whenever an opportunity offers of acquiring a good coat, either by gift, purchase, or theft, the Gipsy immediately bestirs himself to become master of it. Possessed of the prize, he puts it on directly, without considering in the least whether it suits the rest of his apparel. If his dirty shirt had holes in it as big as a barn door, or his breeches so out of condition that any one might, at the first glance, perceive their antiquity; were he unprovided with shoes and stockings, or a covering for his head; none of these defects would prevent his strutting about in a laced coat, feeling himself of still greater consequence in case it happened to be a red one. They are particularly fond of clothes which have been worn by people of distinction, and will hardly ever deign to put on a boor’s coat. They will rather go half naked, or wrap themselves up in a sack, than condescend to wear a foreign garb. Green is a favourite colour with the Gipsies, but scarlet is held in great esteem among them. It is the same with the Hungarian female Gipsies. In Spain, they hang all sorts of trumpery in their ears, and baubles around their necks.

Mr. Borrow says of the Spanish Gipsies, that there is nothing in the dress of either sex differing from that of the other inhabitants. The same may be said of the Scottish tribes, and even of those in England.—Ed.

[105] Gaberlunzie-man—The beggar-man with the ragged apparel.

[106] The unabashed hardihood of the Gipsies, in the face of suspicion, or even of open conviction, is not less characteristic than the facility with which they commit crimes, or their address in concealing them. A Gipsy of note, (known by the title of the “Earl of Hell”) was, about twenty years ago, tried for a theft of a considerable sum of money at a Dalkeith market. The proof seemed to the judge fully sufficient, but the jury rendered a verdict of “not proven.” On dismissing the prisoner from the bar, the judge informed him, in his own characteristic language, “That he had rubbit shouthers wi’ the gallows that morning;” and warned him not again to appear there with a similar body of proof against him as it seemed scarcely possible he should meet with another jury who would construe it as favourably. His counsel tendered him a similar advice. The Gipsy, however, replied, to the great entertainment of all around, “That he was proven an innocent man, and that naebody had ony right to use siccan language to him.”—Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.

[107] The “game” of such a Gipsy may be fitly compared to that of a sparrow-hawk. This bird has been known, while held in the hand, after being wounded, to seize, when presented to it, a sparrow with each claw, and a third with its beak.—Ed.

[108] In the “Monthly Visitor” for February, 1856, will be found an account of the conversion of one of this Gipsy clan, of the name of Jeanie Wilson. The tract is very appropriately headed, “A lily among thorns.”—Ed.

[109] An old woman, whom I found occupying the house of Charles Wilson, at Raploch, in 1845, informed me that she had seen his wife in five different dresses, in one market-day. She was, at the time, a servant in a blacksmith’s family in Stirling, who were great friends of Charles Wilson; and every time Mrs. Wilson came into the smith’s house, from her plundering in the market, this servant girl, then nine years old, cleaned her shoes for a fresh expedition in the crowd. When suspected, or even detected, in their practices, these female Gipsies, by such change of dress and character, easily escaped apprehension by the authorities.

[110] There are a number of small landed proprietors in the hilly parts of Kinross-shire; hence the appellation of Brae-laird.

[111] It is interesting to notice such rencounters between these pretty, genteel-looking Gipsies and the ordinary natives. The denouement, in this instance, might have been a marriage, and the plantation of a colony of Gipsies among the Braes of Kinross-shire. The same might have happened in the case of the other lady Wilson, with the adjutant at Stirling, or with one of his acquaintances.—Ed.

[112] Vol. ii., page 17.

[113] Golbery’s Travels, translated by Francis Blagden. Vol. i, page 158.

[114] What is said here is, of course, applicable to a class, only, of the Gipsies. Our author need not have gone so very far away from home, for instances of theft and robbery being, under certain circumstances, deemed honourable. Both were, at one time, followed in Scotland, when all practised

See Disquisition on the Gipsies.—Ed.

[115] Asiatic Researches, vol. vii., pages 189 and 193.

[116] Dr. James Grieve’s translation of a Russian account of Kamtschatka, page 323.

[117] An old Gipsy told me that he had seen one of the principal chiefs, dressed like a gentleman, travelling in a post-chaise, for the purpose of attending fairs.

[Vidocq, of the French secret police, thus writes of the Hungarian Gipsies, visiting the west of Europe: Raising my eyes towards a crowd in front of a menagerie, I perceived one of the false jockeys taking the purse of a fat glazier, whom we saw the next moment seeking for it in his pocket; the Bohemian then entered a jeweller’s shop, where were already two of the pretended Zealand peasants, and my companion assured me that he would not come out until he had pilfered some of the jewels that were shown to him. In every part of the fair where there was a crowd, I met some of the lodgers of the Duchess, (the inn kept by a Gipsy woman in which he had spent the previous night.)—Ed.]

[118] It is pretty certain that the Gipsies came from a warm country, for they have no words for frost or snow, as will be seen in my enquiry into the history of their language.

[119] Such interference with the Gipsies causes them much greater offence than if the informer was a principal in the transaction. To such people, their advice has always been: “Follow your nose, and let sleeping dogs lie.” The following anecdote will illustrate the way in which they have revenged themselves, under circumstances different from the above:

Old Will, of Phaup, at the head of Ettrick, was wont to shelter them for many years. They asked nothing but house-room, and grass for their horses; and, though they sometimes remained for several days, he could have left every chest and press about the house open, with the certainty that nothing would be missing; for, he said, “he aye ken’d fu’ weel that the toad wad keep his ain hole clean.” But it happened that he found one of the gang, through the trick of a neighbouring farmer, feeding six horses on the best piece of grass on his farm, which he was keeping for winter fodder. A desperate combat followed, and the Gipsy was thrashed to his heart’s content, and hunted out of the neighbourhood. A warfare of five years’ duration ensued between Will and the Gipsies. They nearly ruined him, and, at the end of that period, he was glad to make up matters with his old friends, and shelter them as formerly. He said he could have held his own with them, had it not been for their warlockry; for nothing could he keep from them—they once found his purse, though he had made his wife bury it in the garden.—Blackwood’s Magazine. It is the afterclap that keeps the people off the Gipsies, and secures for them a sort of toleration wherever they go.—Ed.

[120] If I am not mistaken, Col. Todd is of opinion that the Gipsies originally came from Cabool, in Afghanistan. I will here give a description of an Afghan dance, very like the Gipsy dance in Scotland. “The western Afghans are fond of a particular dance called Attum, or Ghoomboor, in which from fourteen to twenty people move, in strange attitudes, with shouting, clapping of hands, and snapping of fingers, in a circle, round a single person, who plays on an instrument in the centre.”—Fraser’s Library.