When in full dress, Brown wore a hat richly ornamented and trimmed with beautiful gold lace, which was then fashionable among the first ranks in Scotland, particularly among the officers of the army. His coat was made of superfine cloth, of a light green colour, long in the tails, and having one row of buttons at the breast. His shirt, of the finest quality, was ruffled at hands and breast, with a black stock and buckle round the neck. He also wore a pair of handsome boots, with silver-plated spurs, all in the fashion of the day. Below his garments he carried a large knife, and in the shaft or butt-end of his large whip, a small spear, or dagger, was concealed. His brother-in-law, Wilson, was frequently dressed in a similar garb, and both rode the best horses in the country. Having the appearance of gentlemen in their habits, and assuming the manners of such, which they imitated to a wonderful degree, few persons took these men for Gipsies. Like many of their race, they are represented as having been very handsome, tall, and stout-made men, with agreeable and manly countenances. Among the numerous thefts and robberies which they committed in their day, they were never known to have taken a sixpence from people of an inferior class, but, on the contrary, rather to have assisted the poor classes in their pecuniary matters, with a generous liberality, not at all to be looked for from men of their singular habits and manner of life. The following particulars are descriptive of the manner and style in which some of the Gipsies of rank, at one time, traversed this country.
Within these forty-five years, Mr. McRitchie, already alluded to, happened to be in a smithy, in the neighbourhood of Carlisle, getting the shoes of his riding-horse roughened on a frosty day, to enable him to proceed on his journey, when a gentleman called for a like purpose. The animal on which he was mounted was a handsome blood-horse, which was saddled and bridled in a superior manner. He was himself dressed in superfine clothes, with a riding-whip in his hand; was booted and spurred, with saddle-bags behind him; and had, altogether, man and horse, the equipment and appearance of a smart English mercantile traveller, riding in the way of his business. There being several horses in the smithy, he, in a haughty and consequential manner, enquired of the smith, very particularly, whose turn it was first: indicating a strong desire to be first served, although he was the last that had entered the smithy. This bold assurance made my acquaintance take a steady look at the intrusive stranger, whom he surveyed from head to foot. And what was his astonishment when he found the mighty gentleman to be no other than Sandie Brown, the Tinkler’s son, from the neighbourhood of Crieff; whom he had often seen strolling through the country in a troop of Gipsies, and frequently in his father’s house, at the North Queensferry. He could scarcely believe his eyes, so to prevent any disagreeable mistake, politely asked the “gentleman” if his name was not Brown; observing that he thought he had seen him somewhere before. The surprised Tinkler hesitated considerably at the unexpected question, and, after having put some queries on his part, answered that “he would not deny himself—his name was really Brown.” He had, in all likelihood, been travelling under a borrowed name, a practice very common with the Gipsies. When he found himself detected, yet seeing no danger to be apprehended from the accidental meeting, he very shrewdly showed great marks of kindness to his acquaintance. Being now quite free from embarrassment, he, in a short time, began to display, as is the Gipsy custom, extraordinary feats of bodily strength, by twisting with his hands strong pieces of iron; taking bets regarding his power in these practices, with those who would wager with him. Before parting with my friend, Brown very kindly insisted upon treating him with a bottle of any kind of liquor he would choose to drink. At some sequestered station of his tribe, on his way home, the equestrian Tinkler would unmask himself—dispose of his horse, pack up his fine clothes, and assume his ragged coat, leathern apron, and budget—before he would venture among the people of the country, who were acquainted with his real character. Here we see a haughty, overbearing, highway robber, clothed in excellent apparel, and mounted on a good steed, metamorphose himself, in an instant, into a poor, wandering, beggarly, and pitiful Gipsy.
This Alexander Brown, and his brother-in-law, Wilson, carried on conjointly a considerable trade in horse-stealing between Scotland and England. The horses which were stolen in the South were brought to Scotland, and sold there; those stolen in Scotland were, on the other hand, disposed of in the South by English Gipsies. The crime of horse-stealing has brought a great many of these wanderers to an untimely end on the gallows. Brown was at last hanged at Edinburgh, to expiate the many crimes he had, from time to time, committed. It is said that his brother-in-law, Wilson, was hanged along with him on the same day, having been also guilty of a number of crimes. Brown was taken in a wood in Rannach, having been surprised and overpowered by a party of Highlanders, raised for the purpose of apprehending him, and dispersing his band, who lay in the wood in which he was captured. He thought to evade them by clapping close to the ground, like a wild animal. Upon being seized, a furious scuffle ensued; and during the violent tossing and struggling which took place, while they were securing this sturdy wanderer, he took hold of the bare thigh of one of the Highlanders, and bit it most cruelly. Martha, the mother of Brown, and the mother-in-law of Wilson, was apprehended in the act of stealing a pair of sheets while attending their execution.
Charles, by some called William, a brother of Alexander Brown, was run down by a party of the military and some messengers, near Dundee. He was carried to Perth, where he was tried, condemned and executed, to atone for the numerous crimes of which he was guilty. He was conveyed to Perth by water, in consequence of it being reported that the Gipsies of Fife, with the Grahams and Ogilvies at their head, were in motion to rescue him. He, also, was a man of great personal strength; and regretting, after being handcuffed, having allowed himself to be so easily taken, he, in wrath, drove the messengers before him with his feet, as if they had been children. While in the apartment of the prison called the condemned cell, or the cage, he freed himself from his irons, and by some means set on fire the damp straw on which he lay, with the design of making his escape in the confusion. Surprised at the building being on fire, and suspecting Brown to have been the cause of it, and that he was free from his chains, ramping like a lion in his den, no one, in the hurry, could be found with resolution enough to venture near him, till a sergeant of the forty-second regiment volunteered his services. Before he would face the Tinkler, however, he requested authority from the magistrates to defend himself with his broad-sword, and, in case the prisoner became desperate, to cut him down. This permission being obtained, the sergeant drew his sword, and, assisted by the jailer’s daughter, unbarred the doors, till he came to the cage, whence the prison was being filled with smoke. As he advanced to the door, he asked with a loud voice, “Who is there?” “The devil,” vociferated the Gipsy, through fire and smoke. “I am also a devil, and of the black-watch,” thundered back the intrepid Highlander. The resolute reply of the soldier sounded like a death knell to the artful Tinkler—he knew his man—it daunted him completely; for, after some threats from the sergeant, he quietly allowed himself to be again loaded with irons, and thoroughly secured in his cell, whence he did not stir till the day of his execution.
Lizzy Brown, by some called Snippy, a member of the same family, was a tall, stout woman, with features far from being disagreeable. She lost her nose in a battle, fought in the shire of Angus. In this rencounter, the Gipsies fought among themselves with highland dirks, exhibiting all the fury of hostile tribes of Bedouin Arabs of the desert. When this woman found that her nose was struck off, by the sweep of a dirk, she put her hand to the wound, and, as if little had befallen her, called out, in the heat of the scuffle, to those nearest her: “But, in the middle o’ the meantime, where is my nose?” Poor Lizzy’s tall figure was conspicuous among the tribe, owing to the want of that ornamental part of her face.
The Grahams of Lochgellie, the Wilsons of Raploch, near Stirling, and the Jamiesons, noticed under the head of Linlithgowshire Gipsies, were all, by the female side, immediately descended from old Charles Stewart, a Gipsy chief, at one period of no small consequence, among these hordes.[103] When I enquired if the Robertsons, who lived, at one time, at Menstry, were related to the Lochgellie band, the answer which I received was: “The Tinklers are a’ sib”—meaning that they are all connected with one another by the ties of blood, and considered as one family. This is a most powerful bond of union among these desperate clans, which almost bids defiance to the breaking up of their strongly cemented society. Old Charles Stewart was described to me as a stout, good-looking man, with a fair complexion; and I was informed that he lived to a great age. He affirmed, wherever he went, that he was a descendant of the royal Stewarts of Scotland. His descendants still assert that they are sprung from the royal race of Scotland. In support of this pretension, Stewart, in the year 1774, at a wedding, in the parish of Corstorphine, actually wore a large cocked hat, decorated with a beautiful plume of white feathers, in imitation of the white cockade of the Pretender. On this occasion, he wore a short coat, philabeg and purse, and tartan hose. He sometimes wore a piece of brass, as a star, on his left breast, with a cudgel in his hand. Such ridiculous attire corresponds exactly with the taste and ideas of a Gipsy.[104] These pretensions of Stewart are exactly of a piece with the usual Gipsy policy of making the people believe that they are descended from families of rank and influence in the country. At the same time, it cannot be denied that some of our Scottish kings, especially James V, the “Gaberlunzie-man,”[105] were far from being scrupulous or fastidious in their vague amours. As old Charles Stewart was, on one occasion, crossing the Forth, at Queensferry, chained to his son-in-law, Wilson, in charge of messengers, he, with considerable shame in his countenance, observed David McRitchie, whose father, as already mentioned, kept a first-rate inn at the north-side, and in which the Tinkler had frequently regaled himself with his merry companions. Stewart called McRitchie to him, and, taking five shillings out of his pocket, said to him, “Hae, Davie, there’s five shillings to drink my health, man; I’ll laugh at them a’.” He did laugh at them all, for nothing could be proved against him and he was immediately set at liberty. It was, as Charles Graham said—“The auld thing again, but nae proof.”[106]
Another very singular Gipsy, of the name of Jamie Robertson, a near relation of the Lochgellie tribe, resided at Menstry, at the foot of the Ochil hills. James was an excellent musician, and was in great request at fairs and country weddings. Although characterized by a dissoluteness of manners, and professed roguery, this man, when trusted, was strictly honest. A decent man in the neighbourhood, of the name of Robert Gray, many a time lent him sums of money, to purchase large ox horns and other articles, in the east of Fife, which he always repaid on the very day he promised, with the greatest correctness and civility. The following anecdote will show the zeal with which he would resent an insult which he conceived to be offered to his friend: In one of his excursions through Fife, he happened to be lying on the ground, basking himself in the sun, while baiting his ass, on the roadside, when a countryman, an entire stranger to him, came past, singing, in lightness of heart, the song of “Auld Robin Gray,” which, unfortunately for the man, Robertson had never heard before. On the unconscious stranger coming to the words “Auld Robin Gray was a kind man to me,” the hot-blooded Gipsy started to his feet, and, with a volley of oaths, felled him with his bludgeon to the ground; repeating his blows in the most violent manner, and telling him, “Auld Robin Gray was a kind man to him indeed, but it was not for him to make a song on Robin for that.” In short, he nearly put the innocent man to death, in the heat of his passion, for satirizing, as he thought, his friend in a scurrilous song. It was an invariable custom with Robertson, whenever he passed Robert Gray’s house, even were it at the dead hour of night, to draw out his “bread winner,” and give him a few of his best airs, in gratitude for his kindness.
Robertson’s wife, a daughter of Martha, whose son and son-in-law, Brown and Wilson, were executed, as already mentioned, was sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay; but, owing to her advanced years, it was not thought worth the expense and trouble of sending her over seas, and she was set at liberty. Her grandson, Joyce Robertson, would also have been transported, if not hanged, but for the assistance of some of his clan rescuing him from Stirling jail. So coolly and deliberately did he go about his operations, in breaking out of the prison, that he took along with him his oatmeal bag, and a favourite bird, in a cage, with which he had amused himself during his solitary confinement. The following anecdote of this audacious Gipsy, which was told to me by an inhabitant of Stirling, who was well acquainted with the parties, is, I believe, unequalled in the history of robberies: While Robertson was lying in jail, an old man, for what purpose is not mentioned, went to the prison window, to speak to him through the iron stauncheons. Joyce, putting forth his hand, took hold of the unsuspecting man by the breast of his coat, and drew him close up to the iron bars of the window; then thrusting out his other hand, and pointing a glittering knife at his heart, threatened him with instant death, if he did not deliver him the money he had on him. The poor man, completely intimidated, handed into the prison all the money he had; but had it returned, on the jailer being informed of the extraordinary transaction.[107] After escaping from confinement, this Gipsy stole a watch from a house at Alva, but had hardly got it into his possession before he was discovered, and had the inhabitants of the village in pursuit of him. A man, of the name of Dawson, met him in his flight, and, astonished at seeing the crowd at his heels, enquired, impatiently, what was the matter. “They are all running after me, and you will soon run too,” replied the Tinkler, without shortening his step. He took to Tullibody plantations, but was apprehended, and had the watch taken from him.
I will notice another principal Gipsy, closely connected by blood with the Fife bands, and of that rank that entitled him to issue tokens to the members of his tribe. The name of this chief was Charles Wilson, and his place of residence, at one time, was Raploch, close by Stirling castle, where he possessed some heritable property in houses. He was a stout, athletic, good-looking man, fully six feet in stature, and of a fair complexion; and was, in general, handsomely dressed, frequently displaying a gold watch, with many seals attached to its chain. In his appearance he was respectable, very polite in his manners, and had, altogether, little or nothing about him which, at first sight, or to the general public, indicated him to be a Gipsy. But, nevertheless, I was assured by one of the tribe, who was well acquainted with him, that he spoke the language, and observed all the customs, and followed the practices of the Gipsies.
He was a pretty extensive horse-dealer, having at times in his possession numbers of the best bred horses in the country. He most commonly bought and sold hunters, and such as were suitable for cavalry; and for some of his horses he received upwards of a hundred guineas apiece. In his dealings he always paid cash for his purchases, but accepted bills from his customers of respectability. Many a one purchased horses of him; and he was taken notice of by many respectable people in the neighbourhood; but the community in general looked upon him, and his people, with suspicion and fear, and were by no means fond of quarrelling with any of his vindictive fraternity. When any of his customers required a horse from him, and told him that the matter was left wholly to himself, as regards price, but to provide an animal suitable for the purpose required, no man in Scotland would act with greater honour than Charles Wilson. He would then fit his employer completely, and charge for the horse exactly what the price should be. To this manner of dealing he was very averse, and endeavoured to avoid it as much as possible. It is said he was never known to deceive any one in his transactions, when entire confidence was placed in him. But, on the other hand, when any tried to make a bargain with him, without any reference to himself, but trusting wholly to their own judgment, he would take three prices for his horses, if he could obtain them, and cheat them, if it was in his power. It is said his people stole horses in Ireland, and sent them to him, to dispose of in Scotland. On one occasion his gang stole and sold in Edinburgh, Stirling and Dumbarton a grey stallion, three different times in one week. Wilson himself was almost always mounted on a blood-horse of the highest mettle.