[102] Besides getting themselves out of scrapes in such an adroit manner, the Scotch Gipsies have been known to serve a friend, when innocently placed in a position of danger. It happened once that Billy Marshall, the Gipsy chief in Gallowayshire, attacked and robbed the laird of Bargally, and in the tussle lost his cap. A respectable farmer, passing by, some time afterwards, picked up the cap, and put it on his head. The laird, with his mind confused by the robbery and the darkness combined, accused the farmer of the crime; and it would have gone hard with him at the trial, had not Billy come to his rescue. He seized the cap, in the open court, and, putting it on his head, addressed the laird: “Look at me, sir, and tell me, by the oath you have sworn, am not I the man that robbed you?”—“By heaven! you are the very man.”—“You see what sort of memory this gentleman has,” exclaimed the Gipsy; “he swears to the bonnet, whatever features are under it. If you, yourself, my lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to swear that your lordship was the person who robbed him.” The farmer was unanimously acquitted.
Notwithstanding Billy’s courage in “taking care of the living,” an anecdote is related of his having been frightened almost out of his wits, under very ludicrous circumstances. He and his gang had long held possession of a cavern in Gallowayshire, where they usually deposited their plunder, and sometimes resided, secure from the officers of the law. Two Highland pipers, strangers to the country, happened to enter it, to rest themselves during the night. They perceived, at once, the character of its absent inhabitants; and they were not long within it, before they were alarmed by the voices of a numerous band advancing to its entrance. The pipers, expecting nothing but death from the ruthless Gipsies, had the presence of mind to strike up a pibroch, with tremendous fury; at the terrific reception of which—the yelling of the bag-pipes issuing from the bowels of the earth—Billy and his gang precipitately fled, as before a blast from the infernal regions, and never afterwards dared to visit their favourite haunt. The pipers, as might naturally be expected, carried off, in the morning, the spoils of the redoubted Gipsies.—Sir Walter Scott.—Ed.
[103] It is interesting to notice that the three criminals who gave occasion to the Porteous mob, in 1736, were named Stewart, Wilson and Robertson. They were doubtless Gipsies of the above mentioned clans. Their crimes and modes of escape were quite in keeping with the character of the Gipsies.—Ed.
[104] Grellmann, in giving an account of the attire of the poorer kind of Hungarian Gipsies, says: We are not to suppose however that they are indifferent about dress; on the contrary, they love fine clothes to an extravagant degree. Whenever an opportunity offers of acquiring a good coat, either by gift, purchase, or theft, the Gipsy immediately bestirs himself to become master of it. Possessed of the prize, he puts it on directly, without considering in the least whether it suits the rest of his apparel. If his dirty shirt had holes in it as big as a barn door, or his breeches so out of condition that any one might, at the first glance, perceive their antiquity; were he unprovided with shoes and stockings, or a covering for his head; none of these defects would prevent his strutting about in a laced coat, feeling himself of still greater consequence in case it happened to be a red one. They are particularly fond of clothes which have been worn by people of distinction, and will hardly ever deign to put on a boor’s coat. They will rather go half naked, or wrap themselves up in a sack, than condescend to wear a foreign garb. Green is a favourite colour with the Gipsies, but scarlet is held in great esteem among them. It is the same with the Hungarian female Gipsies. In Spain, they hang all sorts of trumpery in their ears, and baubles around their necks.
Mr. Borrow says of the Spanish Gipsies, that there is nothing in the dress of either sex differing from that of the other inhabitants. The same may be said of the Scottish tribes, and even of those in England.—Ed.
[105] Gaberlunzie-man—The beggar-man with the ragged apparel.
[106] The unabashed hardihood of the Gipsies, in the face of suspicion, or even of open conviction, is not less characteristic than the facility with which they commit crimes, or their address in concealing them. A Gipsy of note, (known by the title of the “Earl of Hell”) was, about twenty years ago, tried for a theft of a considerable sum of money at a Dalkeith market. The proof seemed to the judge fully sufficient, but the jury rendered a verdict of “not proven.” On dismissing the prisoner from the bar, the judge informed him, in his own characteristic language, “That he had rubbit shouthers wi’ the gallows that morning;” and warned him not again to appear there with a similar body of proof against him as it seemed scarcely possible he should meet with another jury who would construe it as favourably. His counsel tendered him a similar advice. The Gipsy, however, replied, to the great entertainment of all around, “That he was proven an innocent man, and that naebody had ony right to use siccan language to him.”—Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.
[107] The “game” of such a Gipsy may be fitly compared to that of a sparrow-hawk. This bird has been known, while held in the hand, after being wounded, to seize, when presented to it, a sparrow with each claw, and a third with its beak.—Ed.
[108] In the “Monthly Visitor” for February, 1856, will be found an account of the conversion of one of this Gipsy clan, of the name of Jeanie Wilson. The tract is very appropriately headed, “A lily among thorns.”—Ed.
[109] An old woman, whom I found occupying the house of Charles Wilson, at Raploch, in 1845, informed me that she had seen his wife in five different dresses, in one market-day. She was, at the time, a servant in a blacksmith’s family in Stirling, who were great friends of Charles Wilson; and every time Mrs. Wilson came into the smith’s house, from her plundering in the market, this servant girl, then nine years old, cleaned her shoes for a fresh expedition in the crowd. When suspected, or even detected, in their practices, these female Gipsies, by such change of dress and character, easily escaped apprehension by the authorities.