Come, princes of the ragged regiment, You of the blood!
Prigg, my most upright lord, And these, what name or title
e'er they bear, Jarkman, or Patrico, Cranke or
Clapper-dudgeon, Frater or Abram-man--I speak of all.--
Beggar's Bush.
ALTHOUGH the character of those gipsy tribes which formerly
inundated most of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree
still subsist among them as a distinct people, is generally
understood, the reader will pardon my saying a few words respecting
their situation in Scotland.
It is well known that the gipsies were, at an early period,
acknowledged as a separate and independent race by one of the
Scottish monarchs, and that they were less favourably distinguished
by a subsequent law, which rendered the character of gipsy equal,
in the judicial balance, to that of common and habitual thief, and
prescribed his punishment accordingly. Notwithstanding the
severity of this and other statutes, the fraternity prospered amid
the distresses of the country, and received large accessions from
among those whom famine, oppression, or the sword of war, had
deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence. They lost, in a
great measure, by this intermixture, the national character of
Egyptians, and became a mingled race, having all the idleness and
predatory habits of their Eastern ancestors, with a ferocity which
they probably borrowed from the men of the north who joined their
society. They travelled in different bands, and had rules among
themselves, by which each tribe was confined to its own district.
The slightest invasion of the precincts which had been assigned to
another tribe produced desperate skirmishes, in which there was
often much blood shed.
The patriotic Fletcher of Saltoun drew a picture of these banditti
about a century ago, which my readers will peruse with
astonishment.
"There are at this day in Scotland (besides a great many poor
families very meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others,
who, by living on bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred
thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no
way advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor a country.
And though the number of them be perhaps double to what it was
formerly, by reason of this present great distress, yet in all
times there have been about one hundred thousand of those
vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or subjection either
to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature; . . .
No magistrate could ever discover or be informed, which way one in
a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized.
Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only
a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give
not bread, or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains
in one day, are sure to be insulted. by them), but they rob many
poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In
years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the
mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country
weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions,
they are to be seen, both man and woman, perpetually drunk,
cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together."
Notwithstanding the deplorable picture presented in this extract,
and which Fletcher himself, though the energetic and eloquent
friend of freedom, saw no better mode of correcting than by
introducing a system of domestic slavery, the progress of time, and
increase both of the means of life and of the power of the laws,
gradually reduced this dreadful evil within more narrow bounds. The
tribes of gipsies, jockies, or cairds,--for by all these
denominations such banditti were known,--became few in number, and
many were entirely rooted out. Still, however, a sufficient number
remained to give occasional alarm and constant vexation. Some rude
handicrafts were entirely resigned to these itinerants,
particularly the art of trencher-making, of manufacturing
horn-spoons, and the whole mystery of the tinker. To these they
added a petty trade in the coarse sorts of earthenware. Such were
their ostensible means of livelihood. Each tribe had usually some
fixed place of rendezvous, which they occasionally occupied. and
considered as their standing camp, and in the vicinity of which
they generally abstained from depredation. They had even talents
and accomplishments, which made them occasionally useful and
entertaining. Many cultivated music with success; and the
favourite fiddler or piper of a district was often to be found in a
gipsy town. They understood all out-of-door sports, especially
otter-hunting, fishing, or finding game. They bred the best and
boldest terriers, and sometimes had good pointers for sale. In
winter, the women told fortunes, the men showed tricks of
legerdemain; and these accomplishments often helped to while away a
weary or stormy evening in the circle of the "farmer's ha'." The
wildness of their character, and the indomitable pride with which
they despised all regular labour, commanded a certain awe, which
was not diminished by the consideration, that these strollers were
a vindictive race, and were restrained by no check, either of fear
or conscience, from taking desperate vengeance upon those who had
offended them. These tribes were, in short, the Parias of
Scotland, living like wild Indians among European settlers, and,
like them, judged of rather by their own customs, habits, and
opinions, than as if they had been members of the civilised part of
the community. Some hordes of them yet remain, chiefly in such
situations as afford a ready escape either into a waste country, or
into another jurisdiction. Nor are the features of their character
much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatly diminished,
that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by Fletcher,
it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above five hundred
throughout all Scotland.
A tribe of these itinerants, to whom Meg Merrilies appertained, had
long been as stationary as their habits permitted, in a glen upon
the estate of Ellangowan. They had there erected a few huts, which
they denominated their "city of refuge," and where, when not absent
on excursions, they harboured unmolested, as the crows that roosted
in the old ash-trees around them. They had been such long
occupants, that they were considered in some degree as proprietors
of the wretched shealings which they inhabited. This protection
they were said anciently to have repaid, by service to the laird in
war, or, more frequently, by infesting or plundering the lands of
those neighbouring barons with whom he chanced to be at feud.
Latterly, their services were of a more pacific nature. The women
spun mittens for the lady, and knitted boot-hose for the laird,
which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The
aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the laird when he married,
and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her
ladyship's cracked china, and assisted the laird in his sporting
parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.
The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the
moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place.
These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments of dependence,
were rewarded by protection on some occasions, connivance on
others, and broken victuals, ale, and brandy, when circumstances
called for a display of generosity; and this mutual intercourse of
good offices, which had been carried on for at least two centuries,
rendered the inhabitants of Derncleugh a kind of privileged
retainers upon the estate of Ellangowan. "The knaves" were the
Laird's "exceeding good friends"; and he would have deemed himself
very ill used, if his countenance could not now and then have borne
them out against the law of the country and the local magistrate.
But this friendly union was soon to be dissolved.
The community of Derncleugh, who cared for no rogues but their own,
were wholly without alarm at the severity of the justice's
proceedings towards other itinerants. They had no doubt that he
determined to suffer no mendicants or strollers in the country, but
what resided on his own property, and practised their trade by his
immediate permission, implied or expressed. Nor was Mr. Bertram in
a hurry to exert his newly-acquired authority at the expense of
these old settlers. But he was driven on by circumstances.
At the quarter-sessions, our new justice was publicly upbraided by
a gentleman of the opposite party in county politics, that, while
he affected a great zeal for the public police, and seemed
ambitious of the fame of an active magistrate, he fostered a tribe
of the greatest rogues in the country, and permitted them to
harbour within a mile of the house of Ellangowan. To this there
was no reply, for the fact was too evident and well known. The
Laird digested the taunt as he best could, and in his way home
amused himself with speculations on the easiest method of ridding
himself of these vagrants, who brought a stain upon his fair fame
as a magistrate. Just as he had resolved to take the first
opportunity of quarrelling with the Parias of Derncleugh, a cause
of provocation presented itself.
Since our friend's advancement to be a conservator of the peace, he
had caused the gate at the head of his avenue, which formerly,
having only one hinge remained at all times hospitably open--he had
caused this gate, I say, to be newly hung and handsomely painted.
He had also shut up with paling, curiously twisted with furze,
certain holes in tie fences adjoining, through which the gipsy boys
used to scramble into the plantations to gather birds' nests, the
seniors of the village to make a short cut from one point to
another, and the lads and lasses for evening rendezvous--all
without offence taken, or leave asked. But these halcyon days were
now to have an end, and a minatory inscription on one side of the
gate intimated "prosecution according to law" (the painter had
spelt it persecution--l'un vaut bien l'autre) to all who should
be found trespassing on these enclosures. On the other side, for
uniformity's sake, was a precautionary annunciation of spring-guns
and man-traps of such formidable powers, that, said the rubrick,
with an emphatic nota bene--"if a man goes in, they will break a
horse's leg."
In defiance of these threats, six well-grown gipsy boys and girls
were riding cock-horse upon the new gate, and plaiting May-flowers,
which it was but too evident had been gathered within the forbidden
precincts. With as much anger as he was capable of feeling, or
perhaps of assuming, the Laird commanded them to descend;--they
paid no attention to his mandate: he then began to pull them down
one after another;--they resisted, passively at least, each
sturdy bronzed varlet making himself as heavy as he could, or
climbing up as fast as he was dismounted.
The Laird then called in the assistance of his servant, a surly
fellow, who had immediate recourse to his horse-whip. A few lashes
sent the party a-scampering; and thus commenced the first breach of
the peace between the house of Ellangowan and the Gipsies of
Derncleugh.
The latter could not for some time imagine that the war was real;
until they found that their children were horse-whipped by the
grieve when found trespassing; that their asses were poinded by the
ground-officer when left in the plantations, or even when turned to
graze by the roadside, against the provision of the turnpike acts;
that the constable began to make curious inquiries into their made
of gaining a livelihood, and expressed his surprise that the men
should sleep in the hovels all day, and be abroad the greater part
of the night.
When matters came to this point, the gipsies, without scruple,
entered upon measures of retaliation. Ellangowan's hen-roosts were
plundered, his linen stolen from the lines or bleaching ground, his
fishings poached, his dogs kidnapped, his growing trees cut or
barked. Much petty mischief was done, and some evidently for the
mischief's sake. On the other hand, warrants went forth, without
mercy, to pursue, search for, take, and apprehend; and,
notwithstanding their dexterity, one or two of the depredators were
unable to avoid conviction. One, a stout young fellow, who
sometimes had gone to sea a-fishing, was handed over to the Captain
of the impress service at D--; two children were soundly flogged,
and one Egyptian matron sent to the house of correction.
Still, however, the gipsies made no motion to leave the spot which
they had so long inhabited, and Mr. Bertram felt an unwillingness
to deprive them of their ancient "city of refuge"; so that the
petty warfare we have noticed continued for several months, without
increase or abatement of hostilities on either side.