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John Faw of Dunbar, her former lover, seizing the opportunity of the earl's absence on a foreign embassy, disguised himself and a number of his retainers as gypsies, and carried off the lady, 'nothing loth.' The earl having returned opportunely at the time of the commission of the act, and nowise inclined to participate in his consort's ideas on the subject, collected his vassals, and pursued the lady and her paramour to the borders of England; where, having overtaken them, a battle ensued, in which Faw and his followers were all killed, or taken prisoners, excepting one,

It is by this survivor that the ballad is supposed to have been written. The earl, on bringing back the fair fugitive, banished her a mensa et thoro, and, it is said, confined her for life in a tower at the village of Maybole, in Ayrshire, built for the purpose; and that nothing might remain about this tower unappropriated to its original destination, eight heads carved in stone, below one of the turrets, are said to be the effigies of so many of the gypsies. The lady herself, as well as the survivor of Faw's followers, contributed to perpetuate the remembrance of the transaction; for if he wrote a song about it, she wrought it in tapestry; and this piece of workmanship is still preserved at Culzean Castle. It remains to be mentioned, that the ford, by which the lady and her lover crossed the river Doon from a wood near Cassilis House, is still denominated the Gypsie steps."^[1]

Mr Finlay is of opinion that there are no good grounds for identifying the hero of this adventure with Johnnie Faa, who was king or captain of the gypsies about the year 1590, and he supposes that the whole story may have been the invention of some feudal or political rival, to injure the character, and hurt the feelings of an opponent. As Mr F. however, has not brought forward any authority to support this opinion, we are inclined still to adhere to the popular tradition, which, on the present occasion, is very uniform and consistent. We do not know any thing about the Sir John Faw of Dunbar, whom he supposes to have been the disguised knight, but we know for certain, that the present gypsey family of Faa in Yetholm have been long accustomed to boast of their descent from the same stock with a very respectable family of the name of Faw, or Fall, in East Lothian, which we believe is now extinct.

The transformation of Johnnie Faa into a knight and gentleman, is not the only occasion on which the disguise of a gypsey is supposed to have been assumed for the purpose of intrigue. The old song of 'Clout the Caudron' is founded upon such a metamorphosis, as may be seen from the words in Allan Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany; but an older copy preserves the name of the disguised lover:—

Notwithstanding the severe laws frequently enacted by the Scottish legislature against this vagrant race, and, as we have seen, often rigorously enforced, they still continued grievously to molest the country about the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. They traversed the whole mountainous districts of the south, particularly Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire, and Tweeddale, and committed great and daring depredations. A gang of them once broke into the House of Pennycuick, while the greater part of the family were at church. Sir John Clerke, the proprietor, barricadoed himself in his own apartment, where he sustained a sort of siege—firing from the windows upon the robbers, who fired in return. By an odd accident, one of them, while they strayed through the house in quest of plate and other portable articles, began to ascend the stair of a very narrow turret. When he had got to some height, his foot slipt; and to save himself, in falling, the gypsey caught hold of what was rather an ominous means of assistance—a rope, namely, which hung conveniently for the purpose. It proved to be the bell-rope, and the fellow's weight, in falling, set the alarm-bell a-ringing, and startled the congregation who were assembled in the parish church. They instantly came to rescue the laird, and succeeded, it is said, in apprehending some of the gypsies, who were executed. There is a written account of