Guy Mannering, Vol. I

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These things did not pass without notice and censure. We are not
made of wood or stone, and the things which connect themselves
with our hearts and habits cannot, like bark or lichen, be rent
away without our missing them. The farmer's dame lacked her usual
share of intelligence, perhaps also the self-applause which she
had felt while distributing the awmous (alms), in shape of a
gowpen (handful) of oatmeal, to the mendicant who brought the
news. The cottage felt inconvenience from interruption of the
petty trade carried on by the itinerant dealers. The children
lacked their supply of sugarplums and toys; the young women wanted
pins, ribbons, combs, and ballads; and the old could no longer
barter their eggs for salt, snuff, and tobacco. All these
circumstances brought the busy Laird of Ellangowan into discredit,
which was the more general on account of his former popularity.
Even his lineage was brought up in judgment against him. They
thought 'naething of what the like of Greenside, or Burnville, or
Viewforth might do, that were strangers in the country; but
Ellangowan! that had been a name amang them since the Mirk
Monanday, and lang before--HIM to be grinding the puir at that
rate! They ca'd his grandfather the Wicked Laird; but, though he
was whiles fractious aneuch, when he got into roving company and
had ta'en the drap drink, he would have scorned to gang on at this
gate. Na, na, the muckle chumlay in the Auld Place reeked like a
killogie in his time, and there were as mony puir folk riving at
the banes in the court, and about the door, as there were gentles
in the ha'. And the leddy, on ilka Christmas night as it came
round, gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir body about, in
honour of the twelve apostles like. They were fond to ca' it
papistrie; but I think our great folk might take a lesson frae the
papists whiles. They gie another sort o' help to puir folk than
just dinging down a saxpence in the brod on the Sabbath, and
kilting, and scourging, and drumming them a' the sax days o' the
week besides.'

Such was the gossip over the good twopenny in every ale-house
within three or four miles of Ellangowan, that being about the
diameter of the orbit in which our friend Godfrey Bertram, Esq.,
J. P., must be considered as the principal luminary. Still greater
scope was given to evil tongues by the removal of a colony of
gipsies, with one of whom our reader is somewhat acquainted, and
who had for a great many years enjoyed their chief settlement upon
the estate of Ellangowan.

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
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.

CHAPTER VIII

So the red Indian, by Ontario's side,
Nursed hardy on the brindled panther's hide,
As fades his swarthy race, with anguish sees
The white man's cottage rise beneath the trees;
He leaves the shelter of his native wood,
He leaves the murmur of Ohio's flood,
And forward rushing in indignant grief,
Where never foot has trod the fallen leaf,
He bends his course where twilight reigns sublime.
O'er forests silent since the birth of time.

SCENES OF INFANCY.

In tracing the rise and progress of the Scottish Maroon war, we
must not omit to mention that years had rolled on, and that little
Harry Bertram, one of the hardiest and most lively children that
ever made a sword and grenadier's cap of rushes, now approached
his fifth revolving birthday. A hardihood of disposition, which
early developed itself, made him already a little wanderer; he was
well acquainted with every patch of lea ground and dingle around
Ellangowan, and could tell in his broken language upon what baulks
grew the bonniest flowers, and what copse had the ripest nuts. He
repeatedly terrified his attendants by clambering about the ruins
of the old castle, and had more than once made a stolen excursion
as far as the gipsy hamlet.

On these occasions he was generally brought back by Meg Merrilies,
who, though she could not be prevailed upon to enter the Place of
Ellangowan after her nephew had been given up to the press-gang,
did not apparently extend her resentment to the child. On the
contrary, she often contrived to waylay him in his walks, sing him
a gipsy song, give him a ride upon her jackass, and thrust into
his pocket a piece of gingerbread or a red-cheeked apple. This
woman's ancient attachment to the family, repelled and checked in
every other direction, seemed to rejoice in having some object on
which it could yet repose and expand itself. She prophesied a
hundred times, 'that young Mr. Harry would be the pride o' the
family, and there hadna been sic a sprout frae the auld aik since
the death of Arthur Mac-Dingawaie, that was killed in the battle
o' the Bloody Bay; as for the present stick, it was good for
nothing but fire-wood.' On one occasion, when the child was ill,
she lay all night below the window, chanting a rhyme which she
believed sovereign as a febrifuge, and could neither be prevailed
upon to enter the house nor to leave the station she had chosen
till she was informed that the crisis was over.

The affection of this woman became matter of suspicion, not indeed
to the Laird, who was never hasty in suspecting evil, but to his
wife, who had indifferent health and poor spirits. She was now far
advanced in a second pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad
herself, and the woman who attended upon Harry was young and
thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson to undertake the task of
watching the boy in his rambles, when he should not be otherwise
accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was
enraptured with his own success in having already brought him so
far in his learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea
of this early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the
gipsies, like a second Adam Smith,[Footnote: The father of
Economical Philosophy was, when a child, actually carried off by
gipsies, and remained some hours in their possession.] was not to
be tolerated; and accordingly, though the charge was contrary to
all his habits of life, he readily undertook it, and might be seen
stalking about with a mathematical problem in his head, and his
eye upon a child of five years old, whose rambles led him into a
hundred awkward situations. Twice was the Dominie chased by a
cross-grained cow, once he fell into the brook crossing at the
stepping-stones, and another time was bogged up to the middle in
the slough of Lochend, in attempting to gather a water-lily for
the young Laird. It was the opinion of the village matrons who
relieved Sampson on the latter occasion, 'that the Laird might as
weel trust the care o' his bairn to a potatoe bogle'; but the good
Dominie bore all his disasters with gravity and serenity equally
imperturbable. 'Pro-di-gi-ous!' was the only ejaculation they ever
extorted from the much-enduring man.

The Laird had by this time determined to make root-and-branch work
with the Maroons of Derncleugh. The old servants shook their heads
at his proposal, and even Dominie Sampson ventured upon an
indirect remonstrance. As, however, it was couched in the oracular
phrase, 'Ne moveas Camerinam,' neither the allusion, nor the
language in which it was expressed, were calculated for Mr.
Bertram's edification, and matters proceeded against the gipsies
in form of law. Every door in the hamlet was chalked by the
ground-officer, in token of a formal warning to remove at next
term. Still, however, they showed no symptoms either of submission
or of compliance. At length the term-day, the fatal Martinmas,
arrived, and violent measures of ejection were resorted to. A
strong posse of peace-officers, sufficient to render all
resistance vain, charged the inhabitants to depart by noon; and,
as they did not obey, the officers, in terms of their warrant,
proceeded to unroof the cottages, and pull down the wretched doors
and windows--a summary and effectual mode of ejection still
practised in some remote parts of Scotland when a tenant proves
refractory. The gipsies for a time beheld the work of destruction
in sullen silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and
loading their asses, and making preparations for their departure.
These were soon accomplished, where all had the habits of
wandering Tartars; and they set forth on their journey to seek new
settlements, where their patrons should neither be of the quorum
nor custos rotulorum.

Certain qualms of feeling had deterred Ellangowan from attending
in person to see his tenants expelled. He left the executive part
of the business to the officers of the law, under the immediate
direction of Frank Kennedy, a supervisor, or riding-officer,
belonging to the excise, who had of late become intimate at the
Place, and of whom we shall have more to say in the next chapter.
Mr. Bertram himself chose that day to make a visit to a friend at
some distance. But it so happened, notwithstanding his
precautions, that he could not avoid meeting his late tenants
during their retreat from his property.

It was in a hollow way, near the top of a steep ascent, upon the
verge of the Ellangowan estate, that Mr. Bertram met the gipsy
procession. Four or five men formed the advanced guard, wrapped in
long loose great-coats that hid their tall slender figures, as the
large slouched hats, drawn over their brows, concealed their wild
features, dark eyes, and swarthy faces. Two of them carried long
fowling-pieces, one wore a broadsword without a sheath, and all
had the Highland dirk, though they did not wear that weapon openly
or ostentatiously. Behind them followed the train of laden asses,
and small carts or TUMBLERS, as they were called in that country,
on which were laid the decrepit and the helpless, the aged and
infant part of the exiled community. The women in their red cloaks
and straw hats, the elder children with bare heads and bare feet,
and almost naked bodies, had the immediate care of the little
caravan. The road was narrow, running between two broken banks of
sand, and Mr. Bertram's servant rode forward, smacking his whip
with an air of authority, and motioning to the drivers to allow
free passage to their betters. His signal was unattended to. He
then called to the men who lounged idly on before, 'Stand to your
beasts' heads, and make room for the Laird to pass.'

'He shall have his share of the road,' answered a male gipsy from
under his slouched and large-brimmed hat, and without raising his
face, 'and he shall have nae mair; the highway is as free to our
cuddies as to his gelding.'

The tone of the man being sulky, and even menacing, Mr. Bertram
thought it best to put his dignity in his pocket, and pass by the
procession quietly, on such space as they chose to leave for his
accommodation, which was narrow enough. To cover with an
appearance of indifference his feeling of the want of respect with
which he was treated, he addressed one of the men, as he passed
him without any show of greeting, salute, or recognition--'Giles
Baillie,' he said, 'have you heard that your son Gabriel is well?'
(The question respected the young man who had been pressed.)

'If I had heard otherwise,' said the old man, looking up with a
stern and menacing countenance, 'you should have heard of it too.'
And he plodded on his way, tarrying no further question.
[Footnote: This anecdote is a literal fact.] When the Laird had
pressed on with difficulty among a crowd of familiar faces, which
had on all former occasions marked his approach with the reverence
due to that of a superior being, but in which he now only read
hatred and contempt, and had got clear of the throng, he could not
help turning his horse, and looking back to mark the progress of
their march. The group would have been an excellent subject for
the pencil of Calotte. The van had already reached a small and
stunted thicket, which was at the bottom of the hill, and which
gradually hid the line of march until the last stragglers
disappeared.

His sensations were bitter enough. The race, it is true, which he
had thus summarily dismissed from their ancient place of refuge,
was idle and vicious; but had he endeavoured to render them
otherwise? They were not more irregular characters now than they
had been while they were admitted to consider themselves as a sort
of subordinate dependents of his family; and ought the mere
circumstance of his becoming a magistrate to have made at once
such a change in his conduct towards them? Some means of
reformation ought at least to have been tried before sending seven
families at once upon the wide world, and depriving them of a
degree of countenance which withheld them at least from atrocious
guilt. There was also a natural yearning of heart on parting with
so many known and familiar faces; and to this feeling Godfrey
Bertram was peculiarly accessible, from the limited qualities of
his mind, which sought its principal amusements among the petty
objects around him. As he was about to turn his horse's head to
pursue his journey, Meg Merrilies, who had lagged behind the
troop, unexpectedly presented herself.

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