by Walter Scott
CHAPTER VII 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 inundatedmost of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree still subsistamong them as a distinct people, is generally understood, the reader willpardon my saying a few words respecting their situation in Scotland.
It is well known that the gipsies were at an early period acknowledged asa separate and independent race by one of the Scottish monarchs, and thatthey were less favourably distinguished by a subsequent law, whichrendered the character of gipsy equal in the judicial balance to that ofcommon and habitual thief, and prescribed his punishment accordingly.Notwithstanding the severity of this and other statutes, the fraternityprospered amid the distresses of the country, and received largeaccessions from among those whom famine, oppression, or the sword of warhad deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence. They lost in a greatmeasure by this intermixture the national character of Egyptians, andbecame a mingled race, having all the idleness and predatory habits oftheir Eastern ancestors, with a ferocity which they probably borrowedfrom the men of the north who joined their society. They travelled indifferent bands, and had rules among themselves, by which each tribe wasconfined to its own district. The slightest invasion of the precinctswhich 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 abouta century ago, which my readers will peruse with astonishment:--
'There are at this day in Scotland (besides a great many poor familiesvery meanly provided for by the church boxes, with others who, by livingon bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred thousand peoplebegging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but avery grievous burden to so poor a country. And though the number of thembe perhaps double to what it was formerly, by reason of this presentgreat distress, yet in all times there have been about one hundredthousand of those vagabonds, who have lived without any regard orsubjection 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 ina hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized. Manymurders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a mostunspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread orsome kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in one day, aresure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live inhouses distant from any neighbourhood. In years of plenty, many thousandsof them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot formany days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the likepublic occasions, they are to be seen, both man and woman, perpetuallydrunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.'
Notwithstanding the deplorable picture presented in this extract, andwhich Fletcher himself, though the energetic and eloquent friend offreedom, saw no better mode of correcting than by introducing a system ofdomestic slavery, the progress of time, and increase both of the means oflife and of the power of the laws, gradually reduced this dreadful evilwithin more narrow bounds. The tribes of gipsies, jockies, or cairds--forby all these denominations such banditti were known--became few innumber, and many were entirely rooted out. Still, however, a sufficientnumber remained to give, occasional alarm and constant vexation. Somerude handicrafts were entirely resigned to these itinerants, particularlythe art of trencher-making, of manufacturing horn-spoons, and the wholemystery of the tinker. To these they added a petty trade in the coarsesorts of earthenware. Such were their ostensible means of livelihood.Each tribe had usually some fixed place of rendezvous, which theyoccasionally occupied and considered as their standing camp, and in thevicinity of which they generally abstained from depredation. They hadeven talents and accomplishments, which made them occasionally useful andentertaining. Many cultivated music with success; and the favouritefiddler 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, andsometimes had good pointers for sale. In winter the women told fortunes,the men showed tricks of legerdemain; and these accomplishments oftenhelped to while away a weary or stormy evening in the circle of the'farmer's ha'.' The wildness of their character, and the indomitablepride with which they despised all regular labour, commanded a certainawe, which was not diminished by the consideration that these strollerswere a vindictive race, and were restrained by no check, either of fearor conscience, from taking desperate vengeance upon those who hadoffended them. These tribes were, in short, the pariahs of Scotland,living like wild Indians among European settlers, and, like them, judgedof rather by their own customs, habits, and opinions, than as if they hadbeen members of the civilised part of the community. Some hordes of themyet remain, chiefly in such situations as afford a ready escape eitherinto a waste country or into another Jurisdiction. Nor are the featuresof their character much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatlydiminished that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated byFletcher, it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above fivehundred throughout all Scotland.
A tribe of these itinerants, to whom Meg Merrilies appertained, had longbeen as stationary as their habits permitted in a glen upon the estate ofEllangowan. They had there erected a few huts, which they denominatedtheir 'city of refuge,' and where, when not absent on excursions, theyharboured unmolested, as the crows that roosted in the old ash-treesaround them. They had been such long occupants that they were consideredin some degree as proprietors of the wretched shealings which theyinhabited. This protection they were said anciently to have repaid byservice to the Laird in war, or more frequently, by infesting orplundering the lands of those neighbouring barons with whom he chanced tobe at feud. Latterly their services were of a more pacific nature. Thewomen spun mittens for the lady, and knitted boot-hose for the Laird,which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The agedsibyls blessed the bridal bed of the Laird when he married, and thecradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her ladyship's crackedchina, and assisted the Laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs,and cut the ears of his terrier puppies. The children gathered nuts inthe woods, and cranberries in the moss, and mushrooms on the pastures,for tribute to the Place. These acts of voluntary service, andacknowledgments of dependence, were rewarded by protection on someoccasions, connivance on others, and broken victuals, ale, and brandywhen circumstances called for a display of generosity; and this mutualintercourse of good offices, which had been carried on for at least twocenturies, rendered the inhabitants of Derncleugh a kind of privilegedretainers upon the estate of Ellangowan. 'The knaves' were the Laird's'exceeding good friends'; and he would have deemed himself very ill usedif his countenance could not now and then have borne them out against thelaw of the country and the local magistrate. But this friendly union wassoon to be dissolved.
The community of Derncleugh, who cared for no rogues but their own, werewholly without alarm at the severity of the Justice's proceedings towardsother itinerants. They had no doubt that he determined to suffer nomendicants or strollers in the country but what resided on his ownproperty, and practised their trade by his immediate permission, impliedor expressed. Nor was Mr. Bertram in a hurry to exert his newly-acquiredauthority at the expense of these old settlers. But he was driven on bycircumstances.
At the quarter-sessions our new Justice was publicly upbraided by agentleman of the opposite party in county politics, that, while heaffected a great zeal for the public police, and seemed ambitious of thefame of an active magistrate, he fostered a tribe of the greatest roguesin the country, and permitted them to harbour within a mile of the houseof Ellangowan. To this there was no reply, for the fact was too ev
identand well known. The Laird digested the taunt as he best could, and in hisway home amused himself with speculations on the easiest method ofridding himself of these vagrants, who brought a stain upon his fair fameas a magistrate. Just as he had resolved to take the first opportunity ofquarrelling with the pariahs of Derncleugh, a cause of provocationpresented itself.
Since our friend's advancement to be a conservator of the peace, he hadcaused the gate at the head of his avenue, which formerly, having onlyone hinge, remained at all times hospitably open--he had caused thisgate, I say, to be newly hung and handsomely painted. He had also shut upwith paling, curiously twisted with furze, certain holes in the fencesadjoining, through which the gipsy boys used to scramble into theplantations to gather birds' nests, the seniors of the village to make ashort cut from one point to another, and the lads and lasses for eveningrendezvous--all without offence taken or leave asked. But these halcyondays were now to have an end, and a minatory inscription on one side ofthe gate intimated 'prosecution according to law' (the painter had speltit 'persecution'--l'un vaut bien l'autre) to all who should be foundtrespassing on these inclosures. On the other side, for uniformity'ssake, was a precautionary annunciation of spring-guns and man-traps ofsuch formidable powers that, said the rubrick, with an emphatic notabene--'if a man goes in they will break a horse's leg.'
In defiance of these threats, six well-grown gipsy boys and girls wereriding cock-horse upon the new gate, and plaiting may-flowers, which itwas 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 hismandate: he then began to pull them down one after another;--theyresisted, passively at least, each sturdy bronzed varlet making himselfas 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 partya-scampering; and thus commenced the first breach of the peace betweenthe house of Ellangowan and the gipsies of Derncleugh.
The latter could not for some time imagine that the war was real; untilthey found that their children were horsewhipped by the grieve when foundtrespassing; that their asses were poinded by the ground-officer whenleft in the plantations, or even when turned to graze by the roadside,against the provision of the turnpike acts; that the constable began tomake curious inquiries into their mode of gaining a livelihood, andexpressed 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, enteredupon measures of retaliation. Ellangowan's hen-roosts were plundered, hislinen stolen from the lines or bleaching-ground, his fishings poached,his dogs kidnapped, his growing trees cut or barked. Much petty mischiefwas done, and some evidently for the mischief's sake. On the other hand,warrants went forth, without mercy, to pursue, search for, take, andapprehend; and, notwithstanding their dexterity, one or two of thedepredators were unable to avoid conviction. One, a stout young fellow,who sometimes had gone to sea a-fishing, was handed over to the captainof the impress service at D--; two children were soundly flogged, and oneEgyptian matron sent to the house of correction.
Still, however, the gipsies made no motion to leave the spot which theyhad so long inhabited, and Mr. Bertram felt an unwillingness to deprivethem of their ancient 'city of refuge'; so that the petty warfare we havenoticed continued for several months, without increase or abatement ofhostilities on either side.
