Note 156 — Chapter VII

This long standing feud between the Baillies and the Faas is notorious. In paying a visit to a family of English Gipsies in the United States, the head of the family said to me: “You must really excuse us to-day. It’s the Faas and Baillies over again; it will be all I can do to keep them from coming to blows.” The noise inside of the house was frightful. There had been a “difficulty” between two families in consequence of some gossip about one of the parties before marriage, which the families were sifting to the bottom.

The Faas and their partisans, on reading this work, will not overwell relish the prominence given to the Baillie clan.—Ed.

[157] “He will be pleased to learn that there is, in the house of Provost Whyte, of Kirkaldy, a piece of needle-work, or tapestry, on which is depicted, by the hands of Mrs. Fall, the principal events in the life of the founder of her family, from the day the Gipsy child came to Dunbar in its mother’s creel, until the same Gipsy child had become, by its own honourable exertions, the head of the first mercantile establishment then existing in Scotland.” [This seems to be an extract from a letter. The authority has been omitted in the MS.—Ed.]

[158] “There are,” says a correspondent, “several gentlemen in this town and neighbourhood who have heard declare, that the Falls themselves had often acknowledged to them their descent from the Gipsy Faas. I am told by an old Berwickshire gentlemen, who had the account from his mother, that the Falls, on their departure from Yetholm, stopped some little time at a country village-hamlet called Hume, in Berwickshire, where they had some female relations; and after a few days spent there, they set out for Dunbar, taking their female friends along with them.

“Latterly, the late Robert and Charles Fall, who were cousins, kept separate establishments. Robert possessed the dwelling house now occupied by Lord Lauderdale; and Charles possessed one at the shore, (now the custom-house.) built on the spot where some old houses formerly stood, and was called ‘Lousy Law.’ It was in these old cot-houses that the Falls first took up their residence on coming to Dunbar. It appears the mother of the first of the Falls who came to Dunbar was a woman of much spirit and great activity. Old William Faa, the chief of the Gipsies at Yetholm, when in Lothian, never failed to visit the Dunbar family, as his relations. The Dunbar Falls were connected, by marriage, with the Anstruthers, Footies, of Balgonie, Coutts, now bankers, and with Collector Whyte, of the customs, at Kirkaldy, and Collector Melville, of the customs, at Dunbar.”

[159] Speaking of a gentlemen in his autobiography, Dr. Alexander Carlyle, in 1744. says: “He had the celebrated Jenny Fall, (afterwards Lady Anstruther,) a coquette and a beauty, for months together in the house with him; and as his person and manners drew the marked attention of the ladies, he derived considerable improvement from the constant intercourse with this young lady and her companions, for she was lively and clever, no less than beautiful.”—Ed.

[160] I beg the reader to take particular notice of this circumstance. A Scotch rabble is the lowest and meanest of all rabbles, at such work as this. In their eyes, it was unpardonable that Lady Anstruther, or “Jenny Faa,” should have been of Gipsy origin; but it would have horrified them, had they known the meaning of her ladyship “being of Gipsy origin,” and that she doubtless “chattered Gipsy,” like others of her tribe.—Ed.

[161] See page 108.—Ed.

[162] When Mr. Hoyland commenced making enquiries into the condition of the Gipsies, he addressed circulars to the sheriffs, for information. No less than thirteen Scotch sheriffs reported, “No Gipsies within the county.” A report of this kind was nearly as good as would be that of a cockney, as to there being no foxes in the country; because, while riding through it, on the stage, he did not see any! Baillie Smith’s report, although graphic, is superficial. He states that the Gipsies “marry early in life, and in general have many children;” yet “that their number seems to be encreasing.”—Ed.

[163] The tribe of Young have preserved the following tradition respecting their first settlement in Yetholm: At a siege of the city of Namur, (date unknown,) the laird of Kirk-Yetholm, of the ancient family of Bennets, of Grubit and Marlfield, in attempting to mount a breach, at the head of his company, was struck to the ground, and all his followers killed, or put to flight, except a Gipsy, the ancestor of the Youngs, who resolutely defended his master till he recovered his feet, and then, springing past him upon the rampart, seized a flag which he put into his leader’s hand. The besieged were struck with panic—the assailants rushed again to the breach—Namur was taken, and Captain Bennet had the glory of the capture. On returning to Scotland, the laird, out of gratitude to his faithful follower, settled him and his family, (who had formerly been travelling tinkers and heckle-makers,) in Kirk-Yetholm; and conferred upon them, and the Faas, a fen of their cottages, for the space of nineteen times nineteen years; which they still hold from the Marquis of Tweed-dale, the present proprietor of the estate.—Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.

[164] On solemn occasions, Will Faa assumed, in his way, all the stately deportment of sovereignty. He had twenty-four children, and at each of their christenings he appeared, dressed in his original wedding-robes. These christenings were celebrated with no small parade. Twelve young handmaidens were always present, as part of the family retinue, and for the purpose of waiting on the numerous guests, who assembled to witness the ceremony, or partake of the subsequent festivities. Besides Will’s Gipsy associates, several of the neighbouring farmers and lairds, with whom he was on terms of friendly intercourse, (among others, the Murrays, of Cherry-trees,) used to attend these christenings.—Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.

[165] This is in contradiction to the assertion, in Blackwood’s Magazine, that, on the death of his father, a sort of civil war broke out among the Yetholm Gipsies; and that the usurper of the regal office was dispossessed, after a battle, by the subjects who adhered to the legitimate heir.—Ed.

[166] There would appear to be something remarkable in the position which this Mr. Walker held with the Gipsies. I know, from the best of authority, that most of the people living in and about Yetholm are Gipsies, settled or unsettled, civilized or uncivilized, educated or uneducated; and of one in particular, who went under the title of “Lord Mayor of Yetholm.” He is now dead. The above mentioned Mr. Walker was probably a relation of Dr. Walker, mentioned by Baillie Smith, as the baron-baillie of Yetholm. I notice in Blackwood’s Magazine, that one William Walker, a Gipsy, in company with various Yetholm Gipsies, was indicted at Jedburgh, in 1714, for fire-raising, but was acquitted. The Walkers alluded to in the text are very probably of the same family, settled, and raised in the world. As I have just said, most of the people in and about Yetholm are Gipsies. Gipsydom has even eaten its way in among the population round about Yetholm. The Rev. Mr. Baird, in conducting the Scottish Church Mission among the travelling Gipsies, hailing from Yetholm, doubtless encountered many of them incog. But all this will be better understood by the reader after he peruses the Disquisition on the Gipsies.—Ed.

[167] Will Faa had a brother, a house-carpenter, in New York, who survived him a few years. He was considered a fine old man by those who knew him. He left a family in an humble, but respectable, way of doing. The Scottish Gipsy throne was occupied by another family of Gipsies, in consequence of this family being “forth of Scotland.” There are a great many Faas, under one name or other, scattered over the world.—Ed.