“That’s but a weary trade, Davie,” says Alan, “and rather a blagyard one forby.
Ye would be better in a king’s coat than that.”
“And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,” cried I. “But as you’ll be in King Lewie’s coat, and I’ll be in King Geordie’s, we’ll have a dainty meeting of it.”
“There’s some sense in that,” he admitted.
“An advocate, then, it’ll have to be,” I continued, “and I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was _three times_ disarmed.
But the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best colleges for that kind of learning—and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his studies—is the college of Leyden in Holland.
Now, what say you, Alan?
Could not a cadet of _Royal Ecossais_ get a furlough, slip over the marches, and call in upon a Leyden student?”
“Well, and I would think he could!” cried he. “Ye see, I stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what’s mair to the purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the Scots-Dutch.
Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett’s.
And Lord Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like C?sar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”
“Is Lord Meloort an author, then?” I asked, for much as Alan thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.
“The very same, Davie,” said he. “One would think a colonel would have something better to attend to.
But what can I say that make songs?”
“Well, then,” said I, “it only remains you should give me an address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send you mine.”
“The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,” said he, “Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the Isle of France.
It might take long, or it might take short, but it would aye get to my hands at the last of it.”
We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me vastly to hear Alan.
His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I should rather say, like a diversion.
He engaged the goodwife of the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives’ remedies she could supply him with in return.
We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from Edinburgh for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well avoid.
The wind although still high, was very mild, the sun shone strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion.
From Prestonpans he had me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle.
Thence, at his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie.
Though they were building herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell’s, it seemed a desert-like, back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms were all different.
I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling and fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and interest.
Something to this effect I remarked to him, when the good-wife (as chanced) was called away.
“What do ye want?” says he. “A man should aye put his best foot forrit with the womankind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert them, the poor lambs!
It’s what ye should learn to attend to, David; ye should get the principles, it’s like a trade.
Now, if this had been a young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my stomach, Davie.
But aince they’re too old to be seeking joes, they a’ set up to be apotecaries.
Why?
What do I ken?
They’ll be just the way God made them, I suppose.
But I think a man would be a gomeral that didnae give his attention to the same.”
And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with impatience to renew their former conversation.
The lady had branched some while before from Alan’s stomach to the case of a goodbrother of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length.
Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction.
The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce marking what I saw.
Presently had any been looking they might have seen me to start.
“We pit a fomentation to his feet,” the good-wife was saying, “and a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal, and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . ”
“Sir,” says I, cutting very quietly in, “there’s a friend of mine gone by the house.”
“Is that e’en sae?” replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small account. And then, “Ye were saying, mem?” says he; and the wearyful wife went on.
Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go forth after the change.
“Was it him with the red head?” asked Alan.
“Ye have it,” said I.
“What did I tell you in the wood?” he cried. “And yet it’s strange he should be here too!
Was he his lane?”
“His lee-lane for what I could see,” said I.
“Did he gang by?” he asked.