Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/57

Walter Scott, writer to the signet, then a very young man, and Mr Fairbairn, long afterwards innkeeper at Blackshiels, who chanced to pass about the time this murder was committed, and being shocked at the indifference with which the bystanders seemed to regard what had passed, pursued, and with the assistance of a neighbouring blacksmith, who joined in the chase, succeeded in apprehending the murderer, whose name, it is believed, was Robert Keith. The blacksmith judged it prudent, however, to emigrate soon after to another part of the country, in order to escape the threatened vengeance of the murderer's clan.

"In my parents' early years," continues Mr Hogg, "the Faas and the Bailleys used to traverse the country in bodies of from twenty to thirty in number, among whom were many stout, handsome, and athletic men. They generally cleared the waters and burns of fish, the farmers' out-houses of poultry and eggs, and the lums of all superfluous and moveable stuff, such as hams, &c. that hung there for the purpose of reisting. It was likewise well known, that they never scrupled killing a lamb or a wether occasionally; but they always managed matters so dexterously, that no one could ever ascertain from whom these were taken. The gypsies were otherwise civil, full of Immour and merriment, and the country people did not dislike them. They fought desperately with one another, but were seldom the aggressors in any dispute or quarrel with others.—Old Will of Phaup, a well-known character at the head of Ettrick, was wont to shelter them for many years;—they asked nothing but house-room and grass for their horses; and though they sometimes remained for several days, he could have left every chest and press about the house open, with the certainty that nothing would be missing; for he said, 'he aye ken'd fu' weel that the tod wad keep his ain hole clean.' But times altered sadly with honest Will—which happened as follows:—The gypsies (or tinklers, as they then began to be called) were lodged at a place called Potburn, and the farmer either having bad grass about his house, or not choosing to have it eaten up, had made the gypsies turn their horses over the water to Phaup ground. One morning about break of day, Will found the stoutest man of the gang, Ellick Kennedy, feeding six horses on the Coomb-loan, the best piece of grass on the farm, and which he was carefully haining for winter fodder. A desperate combat ensued—but there was no man a match for Will—he threshed the tinkler to his heart's content, cut the girthing and sunks off the horses, and hunted them out of the country. A warfare of five years duration ensued between Will and the gypsies. They nearly ruined him; and at the end of that period he was glad to make up matters with his old friends, and shelter them as formerly. He said, 'He could maistly hae hauden his ain wi' them, an' it hadna been for their warlockry, but the deil-be-licket he could keep fra their kenning—they ance fand out his purse, though he had gart Meg dibble't into the kail-yaird.'—Lochmaben is now one of their great resorts—being nearly stocked with them. The redoubted Rachel Bailley, noted for her high honour, is viewed as the queen of the tribe."

A woman of the name of Rachel Bailley, (but not the same person, we believe, that our correspondent alludes to) a few years ago, in Selkirkshire, afforded a remarkable evidence of the force of her gypsey habits and propensities. This woman, having been guilty of repeated acts of theft, was condemned by Mr W. Scott, sheriff of that county, to imprisonment in the bridewell there, on hard labour, for six months. She became so excessively wearied of the confinement, to which she had not been accustomed, and so impatient of the labour of spinning, although she span well, that she attempted suicide, by opening her veins with the point of a pair of scissors. In compassion for her state of mind, she was set at liberty by the magistrate; but she had not travelled farther than Yair Bridge-end, being about four miles from Selkirk, when she thought proper to steal a watch from a cottage, and being taken with it in her possession, was restored to her place of confinement just about four hours after she had been dismissed from it. She was afterwards banished the county.

The unabashed hardihood of the gypsies in the face of suspicion, or even of open conviction, is not less characteristic than the facility with which they commit crimes, or then: address in concealing them. A gypsey of note, still alive (an acquaintance of ours), was, about twenty years ago, tried for a