The first reason is, Tweed-dale was part of the district in which, if not the first, at least the second, Gipsy family in Scotland claimed, at one time, a right to travel, as its own peculiar privilege. The chief of this family was called Baillie, who claimed kindred, in the bastard line, to one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, of the name of Baillie, once Balliol.[121] In consequence of this alleged connexion, this Gipsy family also claimed, as its right, to travel in the upper ward of Lanarkshire, adjoining Tweed-dale, in which district the Scottish family alluded to possessed estates; and one of the principal places of the Gipsy rendezvous was an old ruin, among the hills, in the upper part of the parish of Lamington, or rather Wanel in those days.
The second reason is, that the surface of Tweed-dale is much adapted to the wandering disposition of the Gipsies. It is mountainous, but everywhere intersected by foot-paths and bridle-roads, affording an easy passage to the Gipsies, on foot or horseback. On its many hills are plenty of game; and its infinite number of beautiful streams, including about thirty-five miles of the highest part of the Tweed, abound with trout of the finest quality. The Gipsies, being fond of game, and much addicted to poaching and fishing, flocked to Tweed-dale and the adjoining upland districts of a similar character, comprehending some of the most remote and least frequented parts in the south of Scotland. All these districts being covered with vast flocks of sheep, many of which were frequently dying of various diseases, the Gipsies never wanted a plentiful supply of that sort of food from the families of the store-masters.[122]
And the third reason is, that, in the pastoral districts in the upper parts of the shires of Peebles, Selkirk, Dumfries, and Lanark, including all that mountainous tract of land in which the rivers Tweed, Annan and Clyde have their sources, the Gipsies were, in a great measure, secure from the officers of the law, and enjoyed their favourite amusements without molestation or hindrance.
Before, and long after, the year 1745, the male branches of the Baillies traversed Scotland, mounted on the best horses to be found in the country; themselves dressed in long coats, made of the finest scarlet and green cloth, ruffled at hands and breast, booted and spurred; with cocked hats on their heads, pistols in their belts, and broad-swords by their sides: and at the heels of their horses followed greyhounds, and other dogs of the chase, for their amusement. Some of them assumed the manners and characters of gentlemen, which they supported with wonderful art and propriety. The females attended fairs in the attire of ladies, riding on ponies, with side-saddles, in the best style. On these occasions, the children were left in charge of their servants, perhaps in an old out-house or hut, in some wild, sequestered glen, in Tweed-dale or Clydesdale.
The greater part of the tenantry were kind to the Gipsies, and many encouraged them to frequent their premises. Tweed-dale being the favourite resort of the principal horde, they generally abstained from injuring the property of the greater part of the inhabitants. Indeed, I have been informed, by eye-witnesses, that several of the farmers in Tweed-dale and Clydesdale, at so late a period as about the year 1770, accepted of entertainments from the principal Gipsies, dining with them in the open fields, or in some old, unoccupied out-house, or kiln. Their repast, on such occasions, was composed of the best viands the country could produce. On one occasion, a band dined on the green-sward, near Douglass-mill, when the Gipsies drank their wine, after dinner, as if they had been the best in the land. Some of the landed proprietors, however, introduced clauses in their leases prohibiting their tenants from harbouring the Gipsies; and the Laird of Dolphington is mentioned as one. The tribe, on hearing of the restriction, expressed great indignation at the Laird’s conduct in adopting so effectual a method of banishing them from the district. But so strong were the attachments which some of the Gipsies displayed towards the inhabitants, that the chief of the Ruthvens actually wept like a child, whenever the misfortunes of the ancient family of Murray, of Philliphaugh, were mentioned to him.
In giving an account of the Gipsies who frequented Tweed-dale, and the country adjacent, I have thought it proper to mention particularly the family of Baillie; for this family produced kings and queens, or, in their language, baurie rajahs and baurie raunies, to the Scottish Gipsies. At one period they seem to have exercised a sort of sovereign authority in the tribe, over almost the whole of Scotland; and, according to the ordinary practice of writing history of a great deal more importance, they should, as the chief family of a tribe, be particularly noticed.
The quarrels of the Gipsies frequently broke out in an instant, and almost without a visible cause. A farmer’s wife, with whom I was acquainted, was one day sitting in the midst of a band of them, at work in an old out-house, enquiring the news of the country of them, when, in an instant, a shower of horns and hammers, open knives, files, and fiery peats, were flying through the house, at one another’s heads. The good-wife took to her heels immediately, to get out of the fray. Some of their conflicts were terrible in the extreme. Dr. Pennecuik, in his history of Peebles-shire, already [referred to], gives an account of a sanguinary struggle that took place on his estate of Romanno, in Tweed-dale. The following are the particulars in his own words:
“Upon the 1st of October, 1677, there happened at Romanno, on the very spot where now the dove-cot is built, a remarkable polymachy betwixt two clans of Gipsies, the Fawes and the Shawes, who had come from Haddington fair, and were going to Harestanes, to meet two other clans of these rogues, the Baillies and Browns, with a resolution to fight them. They fell out, at Romanno, among themselves, about dividing the spoil they had got at Haddington, and fought it manfully. Of the Fawes, there were four brethren and a brother’s son; of the Shawes, the father with three sons; and several women on both sides. Old Sandie Fawe, a bold and proper fellow,[123] with his wife, then with child, were both killed dead upon the place; and his brother George very dangerously wounded. In February, 1678, old Robin Shawe, the Gipsy, and his three sons, were hanged at the Grass-market, for the above-mentioned murder, committed at Romanno; and John Fawe was hanged, the Wednesday following, for another murder. Sir Archibald Primrose was justice general at the time, and Sir George McKenzie king’s advocate.” Contrasting the obstinate ferocity of the Gipsy with the harmless and innocent nature of the dove, Dr. Pennecuik erected on the spot a dove-cot; and, to commemorate the battle, placed upon the lintel of the door the following inscription:
“A. D. 1683.
The field of Gipsie blood, which here you see,
A shelter for the harmless dove shall be.”
This Gipsy battle is also noticed by Lord Fountainhall, in the following extract from his MS., now in the Advocate’s Library:—“Sixth February, 1678.—Four Egyptians, of the name of Shaw, were this day hanged—the father and three sons—for the slaughter committed by them on the Faws, (another tribe of these vagabonds, worse than the mendicants validi, mentioned in the code,) in a drunken squabble, made by them in a rendezvous they had at Romanno, with a design to unite their forces against the clans of Browns and Bailezies (Baillies), that were come over from Ireland,[124] to chase them back again, that they might not share in their labours; but, in their ramble, they discovered and committed the foresaid murder; and sundry of them, of both sides, were apprehended.”—“The four being thrown into a hole dug for them in the Greyfriars churchyard, with their clothes on, the next morning the body of the youngest of the three sons, (who was scarce sixteen,) was missed. Some thought that, being last thrown over the ladder, and first cut down, and in full vigour, and not much earth placed upon him, and lying uppermost, and so not so ready to smother, the fermentation of the blood, and heat of the bodies under him, might cause him to rebound, and throw off the earth, and recover ere the morning, and steal away. Which, if true, he deserved his life, though the magistrates deserved a reprimand. But others, more probably, thought his body was stolen away by some chirurgeon, or his servant, to make an anatomical dissection on.”