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this daring assault kept in the records of the family.

Tweeddale was very much infested by these banditti, as appears from Dr Pennycuick's history of that county, who mentions the numerous executions to which their depredations gave occasion. He also gives the following account of a bloody skirmish which was fought between two clans of gypsies near his own house of Romanno. "Upon the 1st of October 1677, there happened at Romanno, in the very spot where now the dovecoat is built, a memorable polymachy betwixt two claims of gipsies, the Fawes and Shawes, who had come from Haddingtoun fair, and were going to Harestains to meet with two other clanns of those rogues, the Baillies and Browns, with a resolution to fight them; they fell out at Romanno amongst themselves, about divideing the spoyl they had got at Haddingtoun, and fought it manfully; of the Fawes were four brethren and a brother's son; of the Shawes, the father with three sons, with several women on both sides: Old Sandie Faw, a bold and proper fellow, with his wife, then with child, were both kill'd dead upon the place, and his brother George very dangerously wounded. February 1678, old Robin Shaw the gipsie, with his three sons, were hang'd at the Grass-mercat for the above-mentioned murder committed at Romanno, and John Faw was hang'd the Wednesday following for another murder. Sir Archibald Primrose was justice-general at the time, and Sir George M'Kenzie king's advocat."^[1] Dr Pennycuick built a dove-cote upon the spot where this affray took place, which he adorned with the following inscription:

Such skirmishes among the gypsies are still common, and were formerly still more so. There was a story current in Teviotdale,—but we cannot give place and date,—that a gang of them came to a solitary farmhouse, and, as is usual, took possession of some waste out-house. The family went to church on Sunday, and expecting no harm from their visitors, left only one female to look after the house. She was presently alarmed by the noise of shouts, oaths, blows, and all the tumult of a gypsey battle. It seems another clan had arrived, and the earlier settlers instantly gave them battle. The poor woman shut the door, and remained in the house in great apprehension, until the door being suddenly forced open, one of the combatants rushed into the apartment, and she perceived with horror that his left hand had been struck off. Without speaking to or looking at her, he thrust the bloody stump, with desperate resolution, against the glowing bars of the grate; and having staunched the blood by actual cautery, seized a knife, used for killing sheep, which lay on the shelf, and rushed out again to join the combat.—All was over before the family returned from church, and both gangs had decamped, carrying probably their dead and wounded along with them: for the place where they fought was absolutely soaked with blood, and exhibited, among other reliques of the fray, the amputated hand of the wretch wnose desperate conduct the maid-servant had witnessed.

The village of Denholm upon Teviot was, in former times, partly occupied by gypsies. The late Dr John Leyden, who was a native of that parish, used to mention a skirmish which he had witnessed there between two clans, where the more desperate champions fought with clubs, having harrow teeth driven transversely through the end of them.

About ten years ago, one John Young, a tinker chief, punished with instant death a brother tinker of inferior consequence who intruded on his walk. This happened in Aberdeenshire, and was remarked at the time chiefly from the strength and agility with which Young, constantly and closely pursued, and frequently in view, maintained a flight of nearly thirty miles. As he was chased by the Highlanders on foot, and by the late General Gordon of Cairnfield and others on horseback, the affair much resembled a fox chase. The pursuers were most of them gamekeepers; and that active race of men were so much exhausted, that they were lying by the springs lapping water with their tongues like dogs. It is scarce necessary to add, that the laws of the country were executed on Young without regard to the consid-