Memorials of John Geddes

memorials of 3oftn 6e<toe$.
and kin, residing at Edinglassie. A factor of the name of
Lieutenant Fyfe (the folk gave him the courtesy title of
Captain) was the party compromised in the story, and
Bonnyman withstood his alleged rapacity, averring that the
signature of Williamson to the second and fraudulent Will
was obtained in articulo mortis, and there was even a
darker suspicion that the dead man's hand was made to
trace the attesting signature. There was a deal of hard
swearing somewhere, and the upholders of the Will were
said to have declared on oath that there was " life " in the
man at the time of the signature, the salvo to their con-
science being that they had got a humble-bee which they
closed within the dead man's mouth at the time of the
signing of the Will. It is a ghastly story, and we may
well conceive that the feud ran high between Bonnyman
and Captain Fyfe, the position of the former reminding
us, on a small scale, of that of Pym determining never
to let Strafford go, for " Auchnies " was known to have
told Fyfe : " I'll never quit grip o' ye, my man, sae
lang's ye hae a pleugh-stilt for a pyet to sit on." And
it " cam true " : Bonnyman sat like a corby* on his
* The story goes that Bonnyman went the length of inciting a character
called "Frostie" to bawl out ribaldry in the streets of Huntly against Captain
Fyfe, to some such effect as this :
Jamie Fyfe, Jamie Fyfe, Will ye tak' hame a peck o' saut
On your life, on your life, To my wife, Jamie Fyfe ?
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