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 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 goodwife 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.