Come, princes of the ragged regiment,
You of the blood! PRIGS, my most upright lord,
And these, what name or title e'er they bear,
JARKMAN, or PATRICO, CRANKE or CLAPPER-DUDGEON,
PRATER 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 pariahs 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 pariahs 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 the
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 inclosures. 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 horsewhip. 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 horsewhipped 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 mode 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.