very person of his handsome and beautiful sweetheart, now metamorphosed into a common Tinkler wench. Whether he now provoked the ire of his dulcinea, by harsh treatment, is not mentioned; but the woman sent, as it were, a dagger to his heart, by calling out before all present: "Ay, laird, ye're no sae kind to me noo, lad, as when ye treated me wi' wine in the forenoon." The man, confounded at his exposure, was glad to get out of her presence, and, rather than bear the cutting taunts of the Gipsy, fled from the place of investigation, leaving his money behind him.[111] [109] An old woman, whom I found occupying the house of Charles Wilson, at Raploch, in 1845, informed me that she had seen his wife in _five_ different dresses, in one market-day. She was, at the time, a servant in a _blacksmith's_ family in Stirling, who were _great friends_ of Charles Wilson; and every time Mrs. Wilson came into the smith's house, from her plundering in the market, this servant girl, then nine years old, _cleaned her shoes_ for a fresh expedition in the crowd. When suspected, or even detected, in their practices, these female Gipsies, by such change of dress and character, easily escaped apprehension by the authorities. [110] There are a number of small landed proprietors in the hilly parts of Kinross-shire; hence the appellation of Brae-laird. [111] It is interesting to notice such rencounters between these pretty, genteel-looking Gipsies and the ordinary natives. The denouement, in this instance, might have been a marriage, and the plantation of a colony of Gipsies among the Braes of Kinross-shire. The same might have happened in the case of the other lady Wilson, with the adjutant at Stirling, or with one of his acquaintances.--ED. It is almost needless to mention that the Stirlingshire Gipsies contributed their full proportion to the list of victims to the offended laws of the country. Although Charles Wilson, the chieftain of the horde, dexterously eluded justice himself, two of his brothers were executed within the memory of people still living. Another of his relatives, of the name of Gordon, also underwent the last penalty of the law, at Glasgow, where an acquaintance of mine saw him hanged. Wilson had a son who carried a box of jewelry through the country, and was suspected of having been concerned in robbing a bank, at, I believe, Dunkeld. Some of the descendants of this Stirlingshire tribe still roam up and down the kingdom, nearly in the old Gipsy manner; and several of them have their residence, when not on the tramp, in the town of Stirling.