“Well, Fleeman,” said the Laird, “and what would that be?”
“Plant it wi’ factors, Laird,” said the fool, “they thrive in every place; but for a’ that,” added he, “deil curse the crap, it’s no a very profitable ane.”
The proprietor of an estate near by Udny was held in special aversion by Jamie, and one day when the fool was lolling on the bank of the Ythan, basking himself in the sun, he was hailed from the other side of the water by this laird, who asked him where was the best ford. The malicious knave directed the laird to the deepest pool in the river, and the laird attempting to cross narrowly escaped drowning. When he arrived, sorely drenched and “forfouchen,” on the other side, he made up to Fleeman, and in a voice hoarse with passion, accused the poor fool of a design to drown him. “Gosh be here, Laird!” said Jamie, “I’ve seen the geese and the deucks crossin’ there hunders o’ times, and I’m sure your horse has far langer legs than they ha’e.”
To try if Jamie was proof against the allurements of pelf, some one about the place scattered a few copper coins on the way between the house and the well, and kept watch at the time when he would be sent out for water. Fleeman, carrying his buckets, came to the place where the coins lay, and, eyeing them for a moment, he muttered to himself—just loud enough to be heard by those who watched his conduct—“When I carry water, I carry water; and when I gather bawbees, I gather bawbees,” and passed on. This shows that if Jamie was a fool, he possessed a virtue which many who are not accounted so cannot lay claim to.
Another story illustrates his extraordinary sagacity. On one occasion he was sent all the way to Edinburgh with a letter to the Laird, who had gone thither some short time previously. Jamie arrived in Edinburgh safely, but he was quite ignorant of the Laird’s address; and this he set about to discover. And thus—as he wandered about in the streets, he narrowly inspected every dog he met, and was at last sufficiently lucky to recognise one of his old bed-fellows. Seizing him in his arms, he ran into a shop, and, asking a coil of rope, measured off five or six yards, and fastening the end of this round the dog’s neck, he set him down, and giving him a few hearty kicks, cried, “Hame wi’ you, ye scoonging tyke! hame wi’ ye!” and, following at the heels of the half-frightened-to-death dog, he discovered the Laird’s temporary dwelling-place.
Fleeman’s wit was sometimes of a playful cast, sometimes of a grave and didactic nature; but grave or gay, it rarely failed to effect the object for which it was called forth. Passing along the road one day, he was accosted by a foppishly-dressed individual, who eyed him from head to foot, and exclaimed in a rather impertinent manner, “You are Udny’s fool, are you not?”
“Ay,” replied Jamie, with an odd stare, peculiar to himself, “I’m Udny’s feel. Fa’s feel are ye?”
Being at Peterhead, Fleeman was one day on the shore near the “Wine Well,” where several gentlemen belonging to the town were assembled, and looking very earnestly through a telescope at some distant object. Always of an enquiring nature, Jamie asked one of the gentlemen what it was they were so intently surveying. “Oh, Jamie,” said he, bantering the fool, “we are looking at a couple of limpets that are trying a race on the Skerry! D’ye no see them?”
“I canna just say that I do,” replied Jamie, as grave as a judge. Then, turning up one side of his head as if listening intently, he all of a sudden assumed an animated expression of countenance, and exclaimed with ludicrous gravity, “Lo’d bless me, sir, I hear the sound o’ their feet as they scamper up the face o’ the rock!” and passed on.
Jamie’s practice was never to call any person a liar, but when any one told him what he considered was a deliberate falsehood, he just capped the initial lie with a bigger one.