"When the Kirk-Yetholm families differed among themselves, (and terrible conflicts at times they had,) this same Mr. Walker was often chosen sole arbitrator, to decide their differences. He has often been locked up in their houses for twenty-four hours together, but carefully concealed their secrets.[166] [166] There would appear to be something remarkable in the position which this Mr. Walker held with the Gipsies. I know, from the best of authority, that most of the people living in and about Yetholm are Gipsies, settled or unsettled, civilized or uncivilized, educated or uneducated; and of one in particular, who went under the title of "Lord Mayor of Yetholm." He is now dead. The above mentioned Mr. Walker was probably a relation of Dr. Walker, mentioned by Baillie Smith, as the baron-baillie of Yetholm. I notice in Blackwood's Magazine, that one William Walker, a Gipsy, in company with various Yetholm Gipsies, was indicted at Jedburgh, in 1714, for fire-raising, but was acquitted. The Walkers alluded to in the text are very probably of the same family, settled, and raised in the world. As I have just said, most of the people in and about Yetholm are Gipsies. Gipsydom has even eaten its way in among the population round about Yetholm. The Rev. Mr. Baird, in conducting the Scottish Church Mission among the _travelling_ Gipsies, hailing from Yetholm, doubtless encountered many of them incog. But all this will be better understood by the reader after he peruses the Disquisition on the Gipsies.--ED. "The Yetholm Tinklers keep up an intercourse with their friends at Horncliff, Spittal, Rothbury, Hexam, and Harbottle. They go frequently to Newcastle, and even to Staffordshire, for earthenware, and the whole family embark in every expedition. "I was at school with most of the present generation of Tinklers. I mean the males; for, to speak truth, I never heard of a female Gipsy being educated at all. "None of this colony have been either impeached or tried for a crime for fifty years past. Two Tinklers have been executed at Jedburgh, in my remembrance, named Keith and Clark, for murder and horse-stealing. They were strangers, from a distance." When I visited Yetholm, I fell in with a gentleman who resided at that time in Town-Yetholm. I chanced to mention to him that I was sure all the Gipsies had a method of their own in handling the cudgel, but he would not believe it. At my request, he took me into some of their houses, and, observing an old, rusty sword lying upon the joists of an apartment in which we were sitting, I took it down, and, under pretence of handling it, in their fashion, gave some of the guards of the Hungarian sword-exercise. An old Gipsy, of the name of Blyth, shook his head, and observed: "Ay, that is an art easily carried about with you; it may be of service to you some day." My friend was then convinced of his mistake.