e 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 goodwife (as chanced) was called
away.

"What do ye want?" says he. "A man should aye put his best foot forrit
with the women-kind; 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 bonny, 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 gomeril that
didna 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 good-brother of
her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing
at extraord