[Footnote 179: This seems a favorite title among the Tinklers. One of the name of Young, bears it at the present time. But the gipsies are not singular in these terrible titles. In the late Burmese war, we find his Burmese majesty creating one of his generals "King of Hell, Prince of Darkness."--See Constable's Miscellany. ]
[Footnote 180: A friend, in writing me, says: "I still think I see him (Muckie Wall) 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 cutlasses 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 ardor. Not a word was spoken during the struggle; nothing was heard but the rattling of the cudgels and the strokes of the cutlasses. 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 cutlass. 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 breasts 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 assist her husband as long as she was able. Her father, the Earl of Hell, 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 beefsteaks.' 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 dispatch him on the spot,) excited a general and lively interest in his favor 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 assailants 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 vigor, 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. [Footnote 181]
[Footnote 181: 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 Yarrows-ford.
This gipsy fray at Hawick is known among the English gipsies as "the Battle of the Bridge."--Ed. ]
"In this battle, it was said that every gipsy, except Alexander Kennedy, the brave chief, was severely wounded, and that the ground on which they fought was wet with blood. Jean Gordon, however, stole unobserved from her band, and, taking a circuitous road, came behind Kennedy and struck him on the head with her cudgel. What astonished the inhabitants of Hawick the most of all, was the fierce and stubborn disposition of the gipsy females. It was remarked that, when they were knocked down senseless to the ground they rose again, with redoubled vigor and energy, to the combat. This unconquerable obstinacy and courage of their females is held in high estimation by the tribe. I once heard a gipsy sing a song which celebrated one of their battles, and in it the brave and determined manner in which the girls bore the blows of the cudgel over their heads was particularly applauded.
"The battle at Hawick was not decisive to either party. The hostile bands a short time afterward came in contact in Ettrick Forest, at a place on the water of Teema called Deephope. They did not, however, engage here, but the females on both sides, at some distance from one another, with a stream between them, scolded and cursed, and, clapping their hands, urged the males again to fight. The men, however, more cautious, only observed a sullen and gloomy silence at this meeting. Probably both parties, from experience, were unwilling to renew the fight, being aware of the consequences which would follow should they again close in battle. The two clans then separated, each taking different roads, but both keeping possession of the disputed district. In the course of a few days, they again met in Eskdale moor, when a second desperate conflict ensued. The Taits were here completely routed and driven [{713}] from the district, in which they had attempted to travel by force.
"The country people were horrified at the sight of the wounded Tinklers after these sanguinary engagements. Several of them, lame and exhausted in consequence of the severity of their numerous wounds, were, by the assistance of their tribe, carried through the country on the backs of asses, so much were they cut up in their persons. Some of them, it was said, were slain outright, and never more heard of. Jean Ruthven, however, who was so dreadfully slashed, recovered from her wounds, to the surprise of all who had seen her mangled body, which was sewed in different parts by her clan."
The Ruthvens mentioned in this extract belonged to a distinguished family among the gipsies. Their male head, in those days, was a man over six feet in height, who lived to the age of one hundred and fifteen. In his youth he wore a white wig, a ruffled shirt, a blue Scottish bonnet, scarlet breeches and waistcoat, a fine long blue coat, white stockings, and silver shoe-buckles. The male gipsies at that time were often very handsomely dressed, and so too were the women. A favorite color with them was green. Mary Yorkston, or Yowston, the wife of the same Matthew Baillie, whose rough manner of courting we mentioned just now, went under the appellation of "my lady," and "the duchess," and bore the title of queen among her tribe. Her appearance on the road, when she was pretty well advanced in life, is thus described: She was full six feet in height, of a stout figure, with harsh, strongly-marked features, and altogether very imposing in her manner. She wore a large black beaver hat tied down over her ears with a handkerchief; a short dark blue cloak, of Spanish cut; petticoats of dark blue camlet, barely reaching to her calves; dark blue worsted stockings, flowered and ornamented at the ankles with scarlet thread; and silver shoe-buckles. Sometimes instead of this garb she wore a green gown trimmed with red ribbons. All her garments were of excellent, substantial quality, and there was never a rag or rent to be seen about her person. Her outer petticoat was folded up round her haunches for a lap, with a large pocket dangling at each side; and below her cloak she carried, between her shoulders, a small pack containing her valuables. She bore a largo clasp-knife, with a long, broad blade, like a dagger, and in her hand was a pole or pike-staff that reached a foot above her head. The male branches of the royal gipsy family of the Baillies, a hundred years ago, used to traverse Scotland on the best horses to be found in the country, booted and spurred, and clad in the finest scarlet and green, with ruffles at their wrists and breasts. They wore cocked hats on their heads, pistols at their belts, and broad-swords by their sides; and at their horses' heels followed greyhounds and other dogs of the chase. They assumed the manners and characters of gentlemen with wonderful art and propriety. The women attended fairs in the attire of ladies, sitting their ponies with all the grace and dignity of high-bred women. Two chieftains of inferior degree to the Baillies were Alexander McDonald and James Jamieson, brothers-in-law, remarkable for their fine personal appearance and almost incredible bodily strength. They were often attired in the most elegant and fashionable manner, and McDonald frequently changed his dress three or four times in one market-day. Now he would appear in the best of tartan, as a Highland gentleman in full costume. Again he might be seen on horseback, with boots, spurs, and ruffles, like a body of no little importance. And not infrequently he wandered through the fair in his own proper garb, as a travelling Tinkler. He had a piebald horse which he had trained to help him in his depredations. At a certain signal it would crouch to the ground like, a hare, and so conceal itself and its rider in a ditch or a hollow, or behind a hedge. There was a gallant gipsy in the seventeenth century named John Faa, [{714}] who, if tradition is to be trusted, won the heart of a fair countess of Cassilis, so that she absconded with him. Many years later there was an extensive mercantile house at Dunbar, the heads of which, named Fall, were descendants of this same gay deceiver. One of the Misses Fall married Sir John Anstruther, of Elie, baronet, but her prejudiced Scottish neighbors could not forget that she carried Tinkler blood in her veins, and poor "Jenny Faa," as they persisted in calling her, was exposed to many an insult. Sir John was once a candidate for election to Parliament, and whenever Lady Jenny entered the burghs during the canvass, the streets resounded with the old song of "Johnny Faa, the gipsy laddie," which recounts how--
"The gipsies came to my Lord Cassilis' yett,
And oh! but they sang bonnie;
They sang sae sweet, and sae complete.
That down came our fair ladie."
It was not all a romance of love, and fine dresses, and free ranging up and down the realm, this life of the gipsies. Magistrates were found pretty often, not only to punish their repeated crimes of robbery and murder, but even to put in force the old savage law against "such as were by habit and repute Egyptians"--namely, that "their ears be nailed to the tron or other tree, and cut off." It is an odd fact that in this act were denounced not only gipsies, but "such as make themselves fools," strolling bards, and "vagabond scholars of the universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, not licensed by the rector and dean of faculty to ask alms." There was an old John Young, an uncle of the Charlie Graham before mentioned, who had seven sons, and when asked where they were, he used to say "They are all hanged." It was a pretty family record, but a just one. Peter, one of the seven, was captain of a band of thieves whose exploits were long remembered in the north of Scotland. He was several times taken and sentenced to the gallows, but managed to escape. Once being recaptured at a distance from the jail out of which he had broken, the authorities were about to hang him on the spot, when some one in the crowd cried out, "Peter, deny you are the man;" whereupon he insisted that his name was John Anderson. Strange as it may appear, he managed to get off by this device, as there was no one present who could or would identify him.
Alexander Brown, a dashing fellow, but a dreadful rascal, and one of the principal members of Charlie Graham's band, after repeated escapes, was hanged at last at Edinburgh, together with his brother-in-law, Wilson. Martha Brown, the mother of one of the prisoners, and mother-in-law of the other, was apprehended in the act of stealing a pair of sheets, while attending their execution. When Charlie Graham was hanged, it was reported that the surgeons meant to disinter his body and dissect it. To prevent this his wife or sweetheart filled the coffin with hot lime, and then sat on the grave, in a state of beastly intoxication, until the corpse was destroyed.