[157] "He will be pleased to learn that there is, in the house of Provost Whyte, of Kirkaldy, a piece of needle-work, or tapestry, on which is depicted, by the hands of Mrs. Fall, the principal events in the life of the founder of her family, from the day the Gipsy child came to Dunbar in its mother's creel, until the same Gipsy child had become, by its own honourable exertions, the head of the first mercantile establishment then existing in Scotland." [This seems to be an extract from a letter. The authority has been omitted in the MS.--ED.] [158] "There are," says a correspondent, "several gentlemen in this town and neighbourhood who have heard declare, that the Falls themselves had often acknowledged to them their descent from the Gipsy Faas. I am told by an old Berwickshire gentlemen, who had the account from his mother, that the Falls, on their departure from Yetholm, stopped some little time at a country village-hamlet called Hume, in Berwickshire, where they had some female relations; and after a few days spent there, they set out for Dunbar, taking their female friends along with them. "Latterly, the late Robert and Charles Fall, who were cousins, kept separate establishments. Robert possessed the dwelling house now occupied by Lord Lauderdale; and Charles possessed one at the shore, (now the custom-house.) built on the spot where some old houses formerly stood, and was called 'Lousy Law.' It was in these old cot-houses that the Falls first took up their residence on coming to Dunbar. It appears the mother of the first of the Falls who came to Dunbar was a woman of much spirit and great activity. Old William Faa, the chief of the Gipsies at Yetholm, when in Lothian, never failed to visit the Dunbar family, as his relations. The Dunbar Falls were connected, by marriage, with the Anstruthers, Footies, of Balgonie, Coutts, now bankers, and with Collector Whyte, of the customs, at Kirkaldy, and Collector Melville, of the customs, at Dunbar." The mercantile house of the Falls, at Dunbar, was so extensive as to have many connexions in the ports of the Baltic and Mediterranean, and supported so high a character that several of the best families in Scotland sent their sons to it, to be initiated in the mysteries of commerce. Amongst others who were bred merchants by the Falls, were Sir Francis Kinloch, and two sons of Sir John Anstruther. It appears that the Falls were most honourable men in all their transactions; and that the cause of the ruin of their eminent firm was the failure of some considerable mercantile houses who were deeply indebted to them.