Part 11 (1/2)
[121] This claim appears doubtful, for there were Gipsies of the name of Baillie (Bailyow) as far back as 1540, as already mentioned.
However, the particulars of the laird's intrigue with the beautiful Gipsy girl, are imprinted on the minds of the Gipsies of that name at the present day.
The second reason is, that the surface of Tweed-dale is much adapted to the wandering disposition of the Gipsies. It is mountainous, but everywhere intersected by foot-paths and bridle-roads, affording an easy pa.s.sage to the Gipsies, on foot or horseback. On its many hills are plenty of game; and its infinite number of beautiful streams, including about thirty-five miles of the highest part of the Tweed, abound with trout of the finest quality. The Gipsies, being fond of game, and much addicted to poaching and fis.h.i.+ng, flocked to Tweed-dale and the adjoining upland districts of a similar character, comprehending some of the most remote and least frequented parts in the south of Scotland. All these districts being covered with vast flocks of sheep, many of which were frequently dying of various diseases, the Gipsies never wanted a plentiful supply of that sort of food from the families of the store-masters.[122]
[122] The Gipsies were not spared of _braxy_, of which they were fond.
I have known natives of Tweed-dale and Ettrick Forest, who preferred _braxy_ to the best meat _killed by the hand of man_. It has a particular _sharp_ relish, which made them so fond of it.
[Braxy is the flesh of sheep which have died of a certain disease.
When the Gipsies are taunted with eating what some call carrion, they very wittily reply: ”The flesh of a beast which G.o.d kills must be better than that of one killed by the hand of man.” Such flesh, ”killed by the hand of G.o.d,” is often killed in this manner: They will administer to swine a drug affecting the brain only, which will cause speedy death; when they will call and obtain the carca.s.s, without suspicion, and feast on the flesh, which has been in no way injured.--_Borrow._ They will also stuff wool down a sheep's throat, and direct the farmer's attention to it when near its last gasp, and obtain the carca.s.s after being skinned.--ED.]
And the third reason is, that, in the pastoral districts in the upper parts of the s.h.i.+res of Peebles, Selkirk, Dumfries, and Lanark, including all that mountainous tract of land in which the rivers Tweed, Annan and Clyde have their sources, the Gipsies were, in a great measure, secure from the officers of the law, and enjoyed their favourite amus.e.m.e.nts without molestation or hindrance.
Before, and long after, the year 1745, the male branches of the Baillies traversed Scotland, mounted on the best horses to be found in the country; themselves dressed in long coats, made of the finest scarlet and green cloth, ruffled at hands and breast, booted and spurred; with c.o.c.ked hats on their heads, pistols in their belts, and broad-swords by their sides: and at the heels of their horses followed greyhounds, and other dogs of the chase, for their amus.e.m.e.nt. Some of them a.s.sumed the manners and characters of gentlemen, which they supported with wonderful art and propriety. The females attended fairs in the attire of ladies, riding on ponies, with side-saddles, in the best style. On these occasions, the children were left in charge of their servants, perhaps in an old out-house or hut, in some wild, sequestered glen, in Tweed-dale or Clydesdale.
The greater part of the tenantry were kind to the Gipsies, and many encouraged them to frequent their premises. Tweed-dale being the favourite resort of the princ.i.p.al horde, they generally abstained from injuring the property of the greater part of the inhabitants. Indeed, I have been informed, by eye-witnesses, that several of the farmers in Tweed-dale and Clydesdale, at so late a period as about the year 1770, accepted of entertainments from the princ.i.p.al Gipsies, dining with them in the open fields, or in some old, unoccupied out-house, or kiln. Their repast, on such occasions, was composed of the best viands the country could produce. On one occasion, a band dined on the green-sward, near Dougla.s.s-mill, when the Gipsies drank their wine, after dinner, as if they had been the best in the land. Some of the landed proprietors, however, introduced clauses in their leases prohibiting their tenants from harbouring the Gipsies; and the Laird of Dolphington is mentioned as one. The tribe, on hearing of the restriction, expressed great indignation at the Laird's conduct in adopting so effectual a method of banis.h.i.+ng them from the district. But so strong were the attachments which some of the Gipsies displayed towards the inhabitants, that the chief of the Ruthvens actually wept like a child, whenever the misfortunes of the ancient family of Murray, of Philliphaugh, were mentioned to him.
In giving an account of the Gipsies who frequented Tweed-dale, and the country adjacent, I have thought it proper to mention particularly the family of Baillie; for this family produced kings and queens, or, in their language, _baurie rajahs_ and _baurie raunies_, to the Scottish Gipsies. At one period they seem to have exercised a sort of sovereign authority in the tribe, over almost the whole of Scotland; and, according to the ordinary practice of writing history of a great deal more importance, they should, as the chief family of a tribe, be particularly noticed.
The quarrels of the Gipsies frequently broke out in an instant, and almost without a visible cause. A farmer's wife, with whom I was acquainted, was one day sitting in the midst of a band of them, at work in an old out-house, enquiring the news of the country of them, when, in an instant, a shower of horns and hammers, open knives, files, and fiery peats, were flying through the house, at one another's heads. The good-wife took to her heels immediately, to get out of the fray. Some of their conflicts were terrible in the extreme. Dr. Pennecuik, in his history of Peebles-s.h.i.+re, already referred to, gives an account of a sanguinary struggle that took place on his estate of Romanno, in Tweed-dale. The following are the particulars in his own words:
”Upon the 1st of October, 1677, there happened at Romanno, on the very spot where now the dove-cot is built, a remarkable polymachy betwixt two clans of Gipsies, the Fawes and the Shawes, who had come from Haddington fair, and were going to Harestanes, to meet two other clans of these rogues, the Baillies and Browns, with a resolution to fight them. They fell out, at Romanno, among themselves, about dividing the spoil they had got at Haddington, and fought it manfully. Of the Fawes, there were four brethren and a brother's son; of the Shawes, the father with three sons; and several women on both sides. Old Sandie Fawe, a bold and proper fellow,[123] with his wife, then with child, were both killed dead upon the place; and his brother George very dangerously wounded. In February, 1678, old Robin Shawe, the Gipsy, and his three sons, were hanged at the Gra.s.s-market, for the above-mentioned murder, committed at Romanno; and John Fawe was hanged, the Wednesday following, for another murder. Sir Archibald Primrose was justice general at the time, and Sir George McKenzie king's advocate.” Contrasting the obstinate ferocity of the Gipsy with the harmless and innocent nature of the dove, Dr.
Pennecuik erected on the spot a dove-cot; and, to commemorate the battle, placed upon the lintel of the door the following inscription:
”A. D. 1683.
The field of Gipsie blood, which here you see, A shelter for the harmless dove shall be.”
[123] It is interesting to notice that the Doctor calls this Gipsy a ”bold and proper fellow.” He was, in all probability, a fine specimen of physical manhood.--ED.
This Gipsy battle is also noticed by Lord Fountainhall, in the following extract from his MS., now in the Advocate's Library:--”Sixth February, 1678.--Four Egyptians, of the name of Shaw, were this day hanged--the father and three sons--for the slaughter committed by them on the Faws, (another tribe of these vagabonds, worse than the mendicants validi, mentioned in the code,) in a drunken squabble, made by them in a rendezvous they had at Romanno, with a design to unite their forces against the clans of Browns and Bailezies (Baillies), that were come over from Ireland,[124] to chase them back again, that they might not share in their labours; but, in their ramble, they discovered and committed the foresaid murder; and sundry of them, of both sides, were apprehended.”--”The four being thrown into a hole dug for them in the Greyfriars churchyard, with their clothes on, the next morning the body of the youngest of the three sons, (who was scarce sixteen,) was missed.
Some thought that, being last thrown over the ladder, and first cut down, and in full vigour, and not much earth placed upon him, and lying uppermost, and so not so ready to smother, the fermentation of the blood, and heat of the bodies under him, might cause him to rebound, and throw off the earth, and recover ere the morning, and steal away. Which, if true, he deserved his life, though the magistrates deserved a reprimand. But others, more probably, thought his body was stolen away by some chirurgeon, or his servant, to make an anatomical dissection on.”
[124] The Scottish Gipsies, as I have already said, have a tradition that their ancestors came into Scotland by way of Ireland.
[The allusion to that circ.u.mstance by the Gipsies, on this occasion, was evidently to throw dust into the eyes of the Scottish authorities, by whom the whole tribe in Scotland were proscribed.--ED.]
About a century after this conflict, we find the nature of the Gipsies still unchanged. The following details of one of their general engagements will serve as a specimen of the obstinate and desperate manner in which, to a late period, they fought among themselves. The battle took place at the bridge of Hawick, in the spring of the year 1772, or 1773. The particulars are derived from the late Mr. Robert Laidlaw, Tenant of Fanash, a gentleman of respectability, who was an eye-witness to the scene of action. It was understood that this battle originated in some encroachments of the one tribe upon the district a.s.signed to the other; a princ.i.p.al source of quarrels among these wanderers. And it was agreed to, by the contending parties, that they were to fight out their dispute the first time they should meet, which, as just said, happened at Hawick.
On the one side, in this battle, was the celebrated Alexander Kennedy, a handsome and athletic man, and head of his tribe. Next to him, in consideration, was little Wull Ruthven, Kennedy's father-in-law. This man was known, all over the country, by the extraordinary t.i.tle of the Earl of h.e.l.l;[125] and, although he was above five feet ten inches in height, he got the appellation of Little Wull, to distinguish him from Muckle William Ruthven, who was a man of uncommon stature and personal strength.[126] The earl's son was also in the fray. These were the chief men in Kennedy's band. Jean Ruthven, Kennedy's wife, was also present; with a great number of inferior members of the clan, males as well as females, of all ages, down to mere children. The opposite band consisted of old Rob Tait, the chieftain of his horde, Jacob Tait, young Rob Tait, and three of old Rob Tait's sons-in-law. These individuals, with Jean Gordon, old Tait's wife, and a numerous train, of youths of both s.e.xes and various ages, composed the adherents of old Robert Tait. These adverse tribes were all closely connected with one another by the ties of blood. The Kennedys and Ruthvens were from the ancient burgh of Lochmaben.
[125] This seems a favourite t.i.tle among the Tinklers. One, of the name of Young, bears it at the present time. But the Gipsies are not singular in these terrible t.i.tles. In the late Burmese war, we find his Burmese majesty creating one of his generals ”King of h.e.l.l, Prince of Darkness.”--See _Constable's Miscellany_.
[126] A friend, in writing me, says: ”I still think I see him, (Muckle Wull,) bruising the charred peat over the flame of his furnace, with hands equal to two pair of hands of the modern day; while his withered and hairy shackle-bones were more like the postern joints of a sorrel cart-horse than anything else.”
The whole of the Gipsies in the field, females as well as males, were armed with bludgeons, excepting some of the Taits, who carried cutla.s.ses, and pieces of iron hoops, notched and serrated on either side, like a saw, and fixed to the end of sticks. The boldest of the tribe were in front of their respective bands, with their children and the other members of their clan in the rear, forming a long train behind them. In this order both parties boldly advanced, with their weapons uplifted above their heads. Both sides fought with extraordinary fury and obstinacy. Sometimes the one band gave way, and sometimes the other; but both, again and again, returned to the combat with fresh ardour. Not a word was spoken during the struggle; nothing was heard but the rattling of the cudgels and the strokes of the cutla.s.ses. After a long and doubtful contest, Jean Ruthven, big with child at the time, at last received, among many other blows, a dreadful wound with a cutla.s.s. She was cut to the bone, above and below the breast, particularly on one side. It was said the slashes were so large and deep that one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was nearly severed from her body, and that the motions of her lungs, while she breathed, were observed through the aperture between her ribs. But, notwithstanding her dreadful condition, she would neither quit the field nor yield, but continued to a.s.sist her husband as long as she was able. Her father, the Earl of h.e.l.l, was also shockingly wounded; the flesh being literally cut from the bone of one of his legs, and, in the words of my informant, ”hanging down over his ankles, like beef steaks.” The earl left the field to get his wounds dressed; but observing his daughter, Kennedy's wife, so dangerously wounded, he lost heart, and, with others of his party, fled, leaving Kennedy alone, to defend himself against the whole of the clan of Tait.
Having now all the Taits, young and old, male and female, to contend with, Kennedy, like an experienced warrior, took advantage of the local situation of the place. Posting himself on the narrow bridge of Hawick, he defended himself in the defile, with his bludgeon, against the whole of his infuriated enemies. His handsome person, his undaunted bravery, his extraordinary dexterity in handling his weapon, and his desperate situation, (for it was evident to all that the Taits thirsted for his blood, and were determined to despatch him on the spot,) excited a general and lively interest in his favour, among the inhabitants of the town, who were present, and had witnessed the conflict with amazement and horror. In one dash to the front, and with one powerful sweep of his cudgel, he disarmed two of the Taits, and cutting a third to the skull, felled him to the ground. He sometimes daringly advanced upon his a.s.sailants, and drove the whole band before him, pell-mell. When he broke one cudgel on his enemies, by his powerful arm, the town's people were ready to hand him another. Still, the vindictive Taits rallied, and renewed the charge with unabated vigour; and every one present expected that Kennedy would fall a sacrifice to their desperate fury. A party of messengers and constables at last arrived to his relief, when the Taits were all apprehended, and imprisoned; but, as none of the Gipsies were actually slain in the fray, they were soon set at liberty.[127]
[127] This Gipsy battle is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, in a postscript to a letter to Captain Adam Ferguson, 16th April, 1819.
”By the by, old Kennedy the tinker swam for his life at Jedburgh, and was only, by the sophisticated and timed evidence of a seceding doctor, who differed from all his brethren, saved from a well-deserved gibbet. He goes to botanize for fourteen years. Pray tell this to the Duke (of Buccleuch,) for he was an old soldier of the Duke, and the Duke's old soldier. Six of his brethren were, I am told, in the court, and kith and kin without end. I am sorry so many of the clan are left.
The cause of the quarrel with the murdered man, was an old feud between two Gipsy clans, the Kennedys and Irvings, which, about forty years since, gave rise to a desperate quarrel and battle at Hawick-green, in which the grandfather of both Kennedy and the man whom he murdered were engaged.”--_Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott._ Alexander Kennedy was tried for murdering Irving, at Yarrowford.