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VAGRANT LIFE—FLETCHER OF SALTOIJN’S OPINIONS—THE
"EGIPTIANS" AND THEIR HABITS—COMMON VAGRANTS—CAIRDS—THE YOUNGS—TIBBIE
CAMPBELL.
THE prevalence of vagrants of divers sorts formed a
distinctive feature in the social life of the nation for a very long
period. In his "Second Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland"
(A.D. 1698), Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun gives a very
forcible picture of the state of matters in this respect, as known to him.
At the date of his writing, the occurrence of three bad harvests in
succession had no doubt made things worse; yet, says Fletcher, "In all
times there have been about one hundred thousand of those vagabonds who
had lived without any regard or subjection either to the laws of the land
or even those of God and Nature. No magistrate could ever be informed, or
discover, 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 the
like public occasions, they are to be seen—both men and women—perpetually
drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together." Perhaps this sketch
by the sincere and ardent patriot may be strongly enough outlined; the
numbers would certainly seem to be overstated; but doubtless the actual
reality had been sufficiently bad. Fletcher had the courage of his
opinions, and he believed in thorough-going remedies. Therefore, founding
upon the example of the "wise antients," such as the Greeks, he tells us
he would have had all these lawless wandering people assigned in perpetual
servitude to the owners of the soil and others. He did not doubt of his
proposal being met "not only with all the misconstruction and obloquy, but
all the disdain, fury, and outcries of which either ignorant magistrates
or proud, lazy, and miserable people are capable." But they must pardon
him if he told them that he regarded "not names but things." The slaves of
the ancients were assured in "clothes, diet, and lodging," and by their
means many useful public works were accomplished. "The original of that
multitude of beggars which now oppress the world" he found to have
proceeded from Churchmen, who, without warrant of Scripture, and in the
teeth of Paul’s injunction, that in whatever condition of life a man was
called to the Christian faith he was to remain content, even if a slave,
had recommended nothing more strongly to masters, in order to the
salvation of their souls, than freeing those of their slaves who would
embrace the Christian faith; a course which soon led to many disorders in
the East, and ultimately to that "great mischief, under which, to the
undoing of the poor, all the nations of Europe have ever since groaned."
Why, then, not adopt the remedy that would both
better the vagabonds of the country socially themselves, and render them
productive industrially in the interest of the general community I Those
vagrant tribes lived a life as miserable as it could well be for
themselves; and they were the responsible agents of "such outrageous
disorders that it were better for the nation," says Fletcher, "they were
sold to the gallies or West Indies than that they should continue
any longer to be a burden and a curse
upon us." He further hints that, "for example and terror, three or four
hundred of the most notorious of those villains whom we call jockies might
be presented by the Government to the State of Venice, to serve in the
gallies against the common enemy of Christendom." A robust style of
treatment truly; yet in Fletcher’s scheme there was after all a germ of
the remedial idea; and as much could hardly be said of the prevailing
notions among the local Magistrates of the time, which extended no further
than simply to have sturdy beggars, "both old and young, men and women,"
and such like people warned off their respective territories, "under pain
of scourging."
For a full century after Fletcher’s time, vagrancy, if
somewhat mitigated in character, was not greatly reduced in respect of
numbers; and the scene described as taking place iii
Poosie Nancy’s continued to be enacted, with variations, in many a similar
howff :—
Ae nicht at e’en a merry core
O’ randie gangrel bodies
In Poosie Nancy’s held the splore,
To drink their orra duddies.
Wi’ quaffin’, an’ laughin’,
They rantit an’ they sang;
Wi’ jumpin’, an’ thumpin’,
The vera girdle rang.
The "Process against the Egiptians," tried and
condemned to death at Banff, in 1700, affords certain authentic glimpses
of the style of life described by Fletcher. Of the four accused persons
who all were sent to the gibbet, one has obtained a certain kind of
immortality, James M’Pherson, said to have been the son of a highland
gentleman by a gipsy mother; who is traditionally credited with his share
of the ideal freebooter’s chivalrous generosity, as also a measure of
skill in handling the violin; and thus we are told—
He played a spring an’ danced it roun’
Aneth the gallows tree;
winding up by breaking the fiddle over his knee because
none of the bystanders would accept as a gift the instrument for which its
owner had no further use. The charges found relevant against the gang of
whom M’Pherson was one, were those of being "knowne habit and repute to be
Egiptians and vagabonds, and keeping the inercats in their ordinarie
manner of thieving and purse cutting, or guilty of the crimes of thift,
masferfull bangstrie and oppressione." The depositions of the witnesses
serve to inform us that the "Egiptians" (gipsies), were wont to appear in
the country, markets, notably St. Rufus Fair, Keith, to the number,
occasionally, of six or eight together, armed, to the terror of his
Majesty’s peaceably disposed lieges, assaulting such as they chose, and
setting on their women, who spoke an unknown tongue for the occasion to
cut purses; that at other times they would get temporary housing on some
doubtful form of tenancy, stealing "kail" and "peats" from the neighbours
quite freely, and almost openly; while occasionally a sheep would
disappear, the theft of which they would deny, but rather than have too
strict inquisition made, especially if backed by adequate powers, would
agree to pay the price of it; and that a more common mode of finding
quarters was to take possession, without leave asked or given, of
somebody’s kiln-barn, and then refuse to be dispossesáed until it suited
them to remove. While thus located, they "some tymes stayed a fourtnight
or even a month," threatening reprisals on such as chose to meddle with
them; and if they needed a "fire weshel," or such like, for use, they
would take it at their own band. They also not unfrequently extorted
considerable sums of money in the most barefaced fashion. The charge of
one witness against M’Pherson was, that he "came into his house and spilt
his ale, and stobbed the bed seeking the deponent," he being forced to
flee for safety and obtain a purchased protection from my lord Seafleld.
From another we have the information that M’Pherson was "one night" at his
house along with others of his class, and "drank with the rest, and danced
all night;" a sufficiently characteristic glimpse of gipsy life on its
social side.
Various writers near the close of the eighteenth
century describe Scotland as sadly over-run by vagrants, including, in
some cases, Irish people, who, it seems, came over under pretence of
visiting their relatives; "a duty," says one narrator caustically, "to
which, it must be allowed, they are particularly attentive." The Old
Statistical writer for the parish of Kinnettles, in Forfarshire, speaks
thus of his locality :—" We have bands of sturdy
beggars, male and female—or, as they are usually called, tinkers —whose
insolence, idleness, and dishonesty are an affront to the police of our
country. These persons are ready for prey of all kinds: everything that
can supply them with provisions or bring them money is their spoil, if it
can be obtained with any appearance of safety. They file off in small
parties, and have their places of rendezvous, where they choose to billet
themselves for at least one day; nor do they fail generally to make good
their quarters, as the farmer is afraid to refuse to answer their demands,
or to complain of the oppression under which he labours."
It had been a practice of long standing for the
Aberdeen Baillies to have evil-doers, including notour vagrants,
"banischit the toun;" and they had occasionally the distinction of an
official drumming out as far as the Bow Brig.[The
Bow Brig spanned the Denburn at Aberdeen between the Green and
Windmilbrae, about the precise point where there is now a latticed iron
foot bridge over the line of the Great North Railway. The Brig was at the
southwest side of the town: the spot it occupied is now, as near as may
be, in the centre of the extended city.] "Their honours the
Baillies were always humane enough," says a local chronicler, "to send
their vagrants all south, and for which cornpliment the authorities in the
south no doubt considered themselves particularly obliged to their
brethren in Aberdeen." On this particular point, another Forfarshire
minister (Rescobie) gives a statement of fact and an opinion
:—" Perth," he says, "usually furnishes out a
pretty large quota; but there is no place sends forth such legions of
these itinerants as Aberdeen, meaning the county as well as the town of
that name. The county is extensive, fertile, and populous; the town
commercial and opulent. What harm would there be in giving Aberdeen a hint
that it would be both creditable and recommendable in them to take
measures, as they ought, to provide for their own poor at home, rather
than set them off, like a flight of locusts, to prey upon their
neighbours, who are under no local obligation to receive or relieve them."
But if Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire sent off hordes of vagrants to the
annoyance of other places, a sufficiency of the same class were still left
at home apparently. The Old Statist for Peterculter parish, for example,
says :—" This country is often infested with
vagrants of various descriptions, who by threats or otherwise, compel
people to give them money and the best vivre8 their houses afford.
They likewise pick up poultry, apparel, and what they can lay hold of.
Their exactions are oppressive, their numbers often formidable, and it
hurts the feelings of the humane to see so many young people trained up to
the same pernicious courses."
The vagrant class embraced two distinct sections. There
was the mere beggar, of the higher or lower degree, and there was the
thorough-paced "caird." The male caird, to the extent of his indastrial
inclination, assumed the profession of "tinkler" homer, or such like, as
already indicated, leaving the details of ordinary foraging largely to his
female companions. And then in the business of "sorning," pure and simple,
there were degrees. Apart from the privileged bede, or blue gown men,
known to certain localities in Scotland, there was a more generally
diffused class of beggars, with a remnant of respectability more or less,
about them, carrying multitudinous meal pocks and other receptacles, and
pretty sure of an "awmous," or night quarters where asked. Then there was
the inferior herd of beggars—creatures who would whine and invoke
numberless blessings on your bead when they appealed to your feelings of
pity, on the ground of infirmities or afflictions real or feigned, and on
finding the appeal to be in vain, would turn and curse you to your face
with amazing goodwill and volubility.
As a sorner, the true caird differed considerably from
either of the two classes of "peer fowk." He knew he had no pretensions to
the standing of the one, and he scorned to demean himself to the level of
the other. The pronounced caird hardly deemed it necessary to approach you
with a whine; an unshrinking and, it might be, insolent demand suited his
temper better; and the remark applies not to the male caird alone. When a
marriage, a funeral, or other "occasion" occurred, at which meat and drink
would be supplied in quantity, the cairds seldom failed to get wind of it,
and as seldom to put in appearance with the express object of sharing in
the good things going. It was no easy matter to satisfy a horde of some
twenty, thirty, or- more of these rapacious and lawless beings in the way
of either meat or drink; and not unfrequently people who wished to save
themselves from the insolent and endless onsets of the whole crew, made a
compact with some guiding spirit, who undertook, on being provided with zo
much as a general booty and something in the shape of a personal
consideration, to keep the whole body in order. One of the last of the
class of unmitigated Aberdeenshire cairds, of caird descent, and herself a
"survival" from a past generation, was Lizzie Fraser, who died not very
many years ago; a woman of masculine proportions, with a voice of such
grating roughness as was well fitted to startle the listener on finding it
owned by one clad in female habiliments. Lizzie
bad been a wife in her day too, a~nd had for her
husband Moses Young, brother of Jock Young the homer, already mentioned,
and himself an old soldier,
A son of Mars,
Who had been in [certain] wars,
yet withal a quiet undemonstrative caird, who loved to
loiter by the water-side, pursuing the contemplative man’s recreation.
When in the zenith of her bodily prowess, this woman, in virtue of. her
great muscular strength, and reckless, outrageous temper, was an
acknowledged queen among her class. And if Lizzie Fraser happened to be
one of the motley throng of cairds that had assembled at some festive
gathering, the task of keeping order was not unfrequently entrusted to
her. Of course, she expected a sufficient reward— as she would not scruple
to say—for her trouble; either that, or facilities for stealing, which
served the end equally well, though in a different way. And other
conditions being settled to her mind, she was by no means slack in
exercising her authority after a fashion to be understood, even by the
least tutored caird intellect. Her method was to supply herself with a
proper cudgel, and, when incipient rebellion against her sovereign rule
manifested itself, she did not hesitate in applying it with a practised
skill and vigour that made the offender, whether man or woman, think twice
before risking a second infliction.
A female caird who preceded Lizzie in point of time,
and who could boast of possessing a different and perhaps higher kind of
influence, was Tibbie Campbell. She was acknowledged, amongst her tribe,
not only as a ruling power, but also as a sort of high priestess and
sorceress or witch. And, her "skeel" found recognition outside caird
circles too. The "twal owsen" team at Mill of Carden, for example, had got
some glamour cast over them. And before the ploughman and gaudman could
get them "streekit" in the draught, they would run wildly, bellowing here
and there, shaking the yokes off their necks, and even straining the soam
itself. The thing had gone on day by day, and there seemed no remeid, till
the well-to-do tenant of the farm, in his perplexity, bethought him of
sending Willie Nicol, his youngest servant lad, to seek the aid of Tibbie
Campbell, as a weird woman. After due inquiry, Willie found her at
breakfast at fresco among a promiscuous
group of her own people; and with some trouble he obtained an audience.
"An’ fat’s yer erran’ here, laddie ?" sharply demanded
Tibbie Campbell.
Willie Nicol, as duly instructed, replied in his own
phraseology that his master, Mr. Tait, sent his best respects to Mrs.
Campbell, and would really take it as a great favour if she would come to
Mill of Carden without loss of time, to examine the bewitched oxen, and
prescribe a cure.
"Ou ! Jock Tait," said the Caird Queen, with a sneering
laugh; and, she added, in a figure as coarse as occurred to her at the
moment, that she "kent him" when he was in a state of dependant infancy.
After some farther parley and cross-questioning, the messenger was
dismissed with the assurance —"I canna gae wi’
ye the day, man. I’m jist gaen awa’ till anither pairt to mairry a pair;
but tell ye Jock Tait that if I’m as lang oot o’ heyven as the morn’s
mornin’, I’se be wi’ ‘im." On the morrow morning Tibbie was still an
inhabitant of this world, and sufficiently sober after the marriage, to
perform her promised journey to Mill of Carden. She was immediately taken
to inspect the oxen, and, according to the narration of Willie Nicol, at
once laid her hand upon one of them, with the exclamation—"This is the
De’il amo’ them a’ !" And sure enough "that was the ane that aye begood
the starshie !" So said Willie, and Willie in his grey old age, as in his
green "youtheid," dearly loved the marvellous. It might be unkind to
endeavour at this distance of time to injure Willie’s credit,~ by
suggesting that Tibbie Campbell had perhaps been shrewd enough to fix on
the wildest-looking ox by the mere use of her eyesight and powers of
observation; perhaps, by leading questions had picked it out of Willie
Nicol himself, or even his master, Jock Tait; or that, perhaps, it was a
mere fancy on the part of the superstitious ploughmen to believe the ox
thus pointed at to be more guilty than his other brethren of the yoke. At
all events, having secured confidence thus far, Tibbie would have little
difficulty in getting her employer to put faith in such remedies as she
might be pleased to prescribe for the glamoured oxen. |
