At the North Queensferry was a very respectable inn, kept by a Mr. McRitchie, which was much frequented and patronized by the Gipsies. On such occasions they did not visit the house in whole families or hordes, fluttering in rags, but as well-dressed individuals, arriving from different directions, as if by chance. In this house they were always treated with consideration and kindness, for other reasons than that of the liberal custom which they brought to it, and, as a natural consequence, the landlord and his family became great favourites with them. One of the members of the family, David McRitchie, my informant, happened one day to purchase a horse, at a fair in Dunfermline, but in feeling for his pocket-book, to pay for the animal, he found, to his surprise and grief, that book and money were gone. The person from whom he bought the horse commenced at once to abuse him as an impostor, for he not only would not believe his tale, but would not trust him for a moment. Under these distressing circumstances, he sought out Ann Jamieson, or Annie McDonald, after her husband’s name, for he knew well enough where his money had gone to, and the sovereign influence which Ann exercised over her tribe. Being well acquainted with her, from having often met her in his father’s house, he went up to her, and putting his hand gently on her shoulder, in a kind and familiar manner, and with a long face, told her of his misfortune, and begged her friendly assistance to help him out of the difficulty, laying much stress on the horse-dealer charging him with an attempt to impose on him. “Some o’ my laddies will hae seen it, Davie; I’ll enquire,” was her immediate reply. She then took him to a public-house, called for brandy, saw him seated, and desired him to drink. Taking the marks of the pocket-book, she entered the fair, and, after various doublings and windings among the crowd, proceeded to her temporary depot of stolen goods. In about half an hour she returned, with the book and all its contents. The cash, bills, and papers which it contained, were in the same parts of the book in which the owner had placed them. This affair was transacted in as cool and business-like a manner as if Annie and her “laddies” had been following any of the honest callings in ordinary life. Indeed, no example, however severe, no punishment, however awful, seems to have had any beneficial effect upon the minds of these Gipsies, or their friends who frequented the surrounding parts of the country, for they continued to follow the ways of their race, in spite of the sanguinary laws of the country. A continuation of their history, up to a period, is little better than a melancholy narrative of a series of imprisonments, banishments, and executions.
Ann Jamieson’s two nephews, Charles and James Jamieson, who rode alongside of their father and uncle to the place of their execution, eating rolls, as if nothing unusual was about to befall them, and who had witnessed their miserable end, in 1770, were themselves executed in 1786 for robbing the Kinross mail. It was their intention to have committed the deed upon the highway, for, the night before the robbery, their mother, Euphan Graham, to prevent detection, insisted upon the post-boy being put to death, to which bloody proposition her sons would not consent. It was then agreed that they should secure their prize in the stable yard of an inn in the town, where the post-boy usually stopped. The two highwaymen were traced to a small house near Stirling, in which they made a desperate resistance. One of them attempted to ascend the chimney, to effect his escape; but, failing in that, they attacked the officers, and tore at them with their teeth, after having struck furiously at them with a knife. But they were overpowered, and secured in irons. Two females were in their company at the time, on whom some of the money was found, most artfully concealed about their persons. So illiterate were these two men that, in crossing the Forth at Kincardine, they presented a twenty-pound note, to be changed, instead of a twenty-shilling one. According to Baron Hume, the trial of these two Gipsies took place on the 18th December, 1786. They were assisted in the robbery by other members of their band, including women and children. Their mother was said to have been transported for the part which she took in the affair; while another member of the gang was below the age at which criminals can be tried and punished in this country. The two brothers, before they committed the crime, measured themselves in a room in Kinross, kept by a Mary Barclay, and marked their heights on the wall. The one stood six feet two inches, and the other five feet four inches.[95]
[86] This and the following three chapters are illustrative of the Gipsies, in their wild state, previous to their gradual settlement and civilization, and are applicable to the same class in every part of the world. [Chapter VI], on the Gipsies of Tweed-dale and Clydesdale, might have been taken the first in order, as descriptive of the tribe in its more primitive condition, but I have allowed it to remain where it stands. A description of the habits peculiar to the race will be found, more or less, in all of these chapters, where they can be consulted, for the better identification of the facts given.—Ed.
[87] It appears that, at this period, James Wilson, town-piper, and John Livingston, hangman, of Linlithgow, were both Gipsies. [Formerly the Gipsies were exclusively employed in Hungary and Transylvania as hangmen and executioners. Grellmann.—Ed.]
[88] This trait in the character of the Scottish Gipsies is well illustrated in the following anecdote, which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. It was obtained by an individual who frequently heard the clergyman in question relate it.
“The late Mr. Leek, minister of Yetholm, happened to be riding home one evening from a visit in Northumberland, when, finding himself likely to be benighted, for sake of a near cut, he struck into a wild, solitary track, or drove-road, across the fells, by a place called the Staw. In one of the derne places through which this path led him, there stood an old deserted shepherd’s house, which, of course, was reputed to be haunted. The minister, though little apt to be alarmed by such reports, was, however, somewhat startled on observing, as he approached close to the cottage, a ‘grim visage’ staring out past a window claith, or sort of curtain, which had been fastened up to supply the place of a door, and also several ‘dusky figures,’ skulking among the bourtree-bushes that had once sheltered the shepherd’s garden. Without leaving him any time for speculation, however, the knight of the curtain bolted forth upon him, and, seizing his horse by the bridle, demanded his money. Mr. Leek, though it was now dark, at once recognised the gruff voice, and the great, black, burly head of his next-door neighbour, Gleid Neckit Will, the Gipsy chief. ‘Dear me, William,’ said the minister, in his usual quiet manner,‘can this be you? ye’re surely no serious wi’ me? ye wadna sae far wrang your character for a good neighbour, for the bit trifle I ha’e to gi’e, William?’—‘Lord saif us, Mr. Leek!’ said Will, quitting the rein, and lifting his hat, with great respect, ‘Whae wad hae thought o’ meeting you out owre here away? Ye needna gripe for ony siller to me—I wadna touch a plack o’ your gear, nor a hair o’ your head, for a’ the gowd o’ Tividale. I ken ye’ll no do us an ill turn for this mistak—and I’ll e’en see ye safe through the eirie Staw—it’s no reckoned a very canny bit, mair ways nor ane; but I wat ye’ll no be feared for the dead, and I’ll tak care o’ the living.’ Will accordingly gave his reverend friend a safe convoy through the haunted pass, and, notwithstanding this ugly mistake, continued ever after an inoffensive and obliging neighbour to the minister, who, on his part, observed a prudent and inviolable secrecy on the subject of this rencounter, during the life time of Gleid Nickit Will.”
I understand this anecdote to apply to old Will Faa, mentioned in the Border Gipsies, under [chapter VII].—Ed.
[89] Some of the Gipsies only put a paper cap on the head, and paper round the feet, of their dead; leaving all the body bare, excepting that they place upon the breast, opposite the heart, a circle made of red and blue ribbons, in form something like the shape of the variegated cockade, worn in the hats of newly-enlisted recruits in the army. [In England it was customary with the Gipsies, at one time, to burn the dead, but now they only burn the clothes, and some of the effects of the deceased.—Ed.]
[90] Instances have occurred in which an Afghan has received a stranger with all the rights of hospitality, and afterwards, meeting him in the open country, has robbed him. The same person, it is supposed, who would plunder a cloak from a traveller who had one, would give a cloak to one who had none.—Hugh Murray’s Asia, vol. 2, page 508.