[THE THREE BRETHREN.]
"Together such as brethren are,
In unity to dwell."
The unity of the three brethren about whom I am going to speak is complete: some are united in heart and soul, but these are united in body and frame: closer than the Siamese twins did their union abide, till, in an evil hour, the winds smote them, and they were no more—"Sed stat nominis umbra." They have left behind them a name and a record which will not soon perish. They might have said—had speaking been at all their forte—with Horace, "Non omnis moriar." They shall live in the recollection of the present, and in the records of future times—at least it will not be from want of will, if the pages of the "Tales of the Borders" do not transmit their memorial to late posterity. The three brethren! you exclaim, quite naturally enough. What! were they brothers by blood or by marriage—brothers in profession—or, like Simeon and Levi, in iniquity? We should like to see the mist cleared away, and the subject made tangible. Well, listen!
The three brethren were three trees, or rather divisions of one tree—as like each other as one pea is to another—which once stood in the middle of the high road from Glasgow to Dumfries, upon the banks of the Nith. People had it that their similarity was so great that it reached the details of their branches, and even leaves, and that they were in every—even in the minutest—respect copies or fac-similes of each other. Nobody living—and far less any one dead—can tell their age. They saw Oliver Cromwell and his saintly crew march into Scotland; and beheld, in later times, the Highland host, in the year '45, pass along. They might have given an old chronicle of ancient times and manners, had it not been that they probably did not outlive the age of Methuselah. But
"Improvisa vis lethi rapuit
Rapietque gentes."
Destruction came in the shape of a nor'wester, and they are now in the act of being converted into snuff-boxes, writing-desks, and dressing-cases, for their old and attached acquaintances and friends; every one seems more anxious than another to obtain a relic of the immortal triumvirate—and they are more likely to be remembered with pleasurable feelings than even were the Triumvirates of ancient Rome. But now that they have bowed their heads, and given up their roots, it is proper that some effort should be made to perpetuate their memory; and who so fit as an old Closeburn man to execute this bold but praiseworthy task?
The explanation, however, requires a glance at the race of gipsies, one of whom thus characterises the race:—
"My bonny lass, I work in brass—
A tinkler is my station—
I've travell'd round all Christian ground
In this my occupation.
I've ta'en the gold—I've been enroll'd
In many a noble squadron—
In vain they search'd, when off I march'd,
To go and clout the caldron."
The gipsies have now disappeared entirely from the north of Scotland; even in Fife, the former residence of the gipsy clan Jamphrey, no such variety of the species is to be found. Their chief residence, as we have had occasion to say before, is now on the Borders, where, in the village of Yetholm, and in Langtown, they still maintain a separate clanship. They still are, and have always been, extremely jealous of the marriage of any of their daughters, in particular, out of the tribe. Hence the fact, that almost every third person amongst them labours under some mental peculiarity or defect. Their male youths enjoy greater latitude; yet, on their alliance with the Philistine fair, they are usually looked down upon, and regarded as a kind of amphibious race, who, like the "Proselytes of the Gate" amongst the Jews, were not admitted into equal communion. Their children are brought up (at least were so, till of late) in the most religious contempt of the alphabet. Nor are any moral principles inculcated, beyond successful thieving—that is, downright knavery—and dexterity of execution as workmen, whether it be in forming a ram's horn into a cutty spoon, or in appropriating the fattest hens from the farmer's bauks. Their women, too, are expert fortunetellers, and have husbands ready-made for sixpence. They are a fearful, fearless race, wandering about, in former times, almost during the whole year, and pitching their tents—in other words, setting their asses to graze, and themselves to forage—wherever solitude or the tolerance of the laird or farmer will permit their presence. When Scotland, in general, and Dumfries-shire in particular, from Criffell to Corsincon, were densely covered with natural wood, these people divided the woodland with the fox, the boar, and the wolf, and were extremely expert in noosing hares, rabbits, and polecats. Theirs was the bow, and ultimately the long-barrelled gun, for securing the fowls of heaven; and the set line, liester, and fishing-rod for the tenants of the water.