Up to the middle of the eighteenth century this appears to have been still an appendage to some families.  I have before me a little publication with the title, “The Life and Death of Jamie Fleeman, the Laird of Udny’s Fool.  Tenth edition.  Aberdeen, 1810.”  With portrait.  Also twenty-sixth edition, of 1829.  I should suppose this account of a family fool was a fair representation of a good specimen of the class.  He was evidently of defective intellect, but at times showed the odd humour and quick conclusion which so often mark the disordered brain.  I can only now give two examples taken from his history:—­Having found a horse-shoe on the road, he met Mr. Craigie, the minister of St. Fergus, and showed it to him, asking, in pretended ignorance, what it was.  “Why, Jamie,” said Mr. Craigie, good humouredly, “anybody that was not a fool would know that it is a horse-shoe.”  “Ah!” said Jamie, with affected simplicity, “what it is to be wise—­to ken it’s no a meer’s shoe!”

On another occasion, when all the country-side were hastening to the Perth races, Jamie had cut across the fields and reached a bridge near the town, and sat down upon the parapet.  He commenced munching away at a large portion of a leg of mutton which he had somehow become possessed of, and of which he was amazingly proud.  The laird came riding past, and seeing Jamie sitting on the bridge, accosted him:—­“Ay, Fleeman, are ye here already?” “Ou ay,” quoth Fleeman, with an air of assumed dignity and archness not easy to describe, while his eye glanced significantly towards the mutton, “Ou ay, ye ken a body when he has anything.”

Of witty retorts by half-witted creatures of this class, I do not know of one more pointed than what is recorded of such a character who used to hang about the residence of a late Lord Fife.  It would appear that some parts of his lordship’s estates, were barren, and in a very unproductive condition.  Under the improved system of agriculture and of draining, great preparations had been made for securing a good crop in a certain field, where Lord Fife, his factor, and others interested in the subject, were collected together.  There was much discussion, and some difference of opinion, as to the crop with which the field had best be sown.  The idiot retainer, who had been listening unnoticed to all that was said, at last cried out, “Saw’t wi’ factors, ma lord; they are sure to thrive everywhere.”

There was an idiot who lived long in Lauder, and seems to have had a great resemblance to the jester of old times.  He was a staunch supporter of the Established Church.  One day some one gave him a bad shilling.  On Sunday he went to the Seceders’ meeting-house, and when the ladle was taken round he put in his bad shilling and took out elevenpence halfpenny.  Afterwards he went in high glee to the late Lord Lauderdale, calling out, “I’ve cheated the Seceders the day, my lord; I’ve cheated the Seceders.”