The tinkler-gypsies . g tothe sign of the cross : Dr MKie, Newton-Stewart—when attending a little boy, one ofthe descendants of Billy Marshall—askedthe boy if he was a descendant of oldBilly, and the boys mother at once said, Oh,ay, hes a real Marshall; hes even got the Marshall mark. Whats that ? asked theDoctor. Thereupon she drew the little boyforward and showed the Doctor the deeplyindented mark of an X upon the boys sceptical will no doubt say, Many a onehas a similar marking on his hand, but havethey ever heard of any one in humble circum-stances who had a similar tradition abou
The tinkler-gypsies . g tothe sign of the cross : Dr MKie, Newton-Stewart—when attending a little boy, one ofthe descendants of Billy Marshall—askedthe boy if he was a descendant of oldBilly, and the boys mother at once said, Oh,ay, hes a real Marshall; hes even got the Marshall mark. Whats that ? asked theDoctor. Thereupon she drew the little boyforward and showed the Doctor the deeplyindented mark of an X upon the boys sceptical will no doubt say, Many a onehas a similar marking on his hand, but havethey ever heard of any one in humble circum-stances who had a similar tradition about thelines on the palm of his hand ? It would,therefore, have been highly appropriate forBilly to have used the sign of the cross inplace of a signature, and, as a matter of fact^Billy has actually carved with his own hands anX between his initials on the horn mug after-wards alluded to ; and the only explanation for * Such letters refer to a list, of authorities for traditions, whichwill be found in the Boy d Hano, shjwing Marshall^Mark Iholoby J. I. 1 liy kinil p^jriiiisBion of Mrs Alexander Marshall, Tinkli-r, (ialloway.) Aversion to Sigiiifig by an X. 35 his declining to sign by a cross must lie in the ffact that the Gypsies as a class are most super-stitious, and Billy, as will afterwards be shown,was a victim to superstitious fears. Bearing in mind that the Marshalls one andall avow themselves to be Protestants, and thatthe Marshall mark cannot therefore beregarded as a Roman Catholic holy symbol,may not, therefore, these two traditions—aboutBillys superstitious aversion to signing by an X,and of a descendant possessing the Marshallmark —form a belated though somewhatindirect answer to the query contained in thelate Mr Groomes quotation from The GypsyLore Journal ? The genuineness of Billys signature isproved by all the requirements of the lawof Scotland, the signing, of each document,has been duly witnessed by two witnesses—theWMtn
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