“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 Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”

“Is Lord Melfort 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.