Now, it happened when Wise Willie turned old, he took a great swelling in his wame, and casting up his kail, collops, and cauld fish, that nothing could stand on his stomach; and a stout stomach he had for crabs heads, and scate broo, or brose in a bridal morning; yet it fail’d him, and he fell sick. None could cure him, nor tell what ail’d him, till a mountebank stage doctor came to Kircaldy that could judge by people’s piss the trouble of their person. Wise Willie hearing of his fame, pissed into the bottle, and sent it away with his daughter. The bottle being uncorked, his daughter spilt it by the way, and to conceal her sloth in so doing, pissed in it herself, and on she goes till she came to the stage-doctor, when she cried out aloud, Sir Doctor, Sir Doctor, here is a bottle of my father’s wash, he has a sair guts, and needs na drite ony, but spues a’ he eats. It’s true I tell you, my dow. The doctor looks at it, then says, it’s not your father’s surely, it’s your mither’s. The deil’s in the man, said she, divna I ken my father frae my mother. Then, said he, he is with child. The deil’s in the man, co’ she, for my mither bare a’ de bairns before; dat’s no true, sir, fegs ye’re a great liar. Hame she comes, and tell’d Willie, her father, that the doctor said he was wi’ bairn. O waes me, co’ Willie, for I hae a muckle wame, an’ I fear its owre true. O plague on you, Janet, for ye’re the father o’t, an’ I am sure to die in the bearing o’t. Witty Eppie was sent for, as she was a houdie, an’ she fand a’ Willie’s wame, to be sure about it. Indeed, co’ Eppie, ye’re the first man ere I saw wi’ bairn before. and how ye’ll bare it, troth I dinna ken, but I would drink salt sea-water and drown it in my guts--for if men get ance the gate o’ bearing weans themselves, they’ll need nae mair wives. So Willie drank sea-water till his guts was like to rive, and out he got to ease himself among the kail; and with the terrible noise of his farting, up starts a maukin behind him, who thought it was shot. Willie seeing her jump o’er the dyke, thought it was a child brought forth, and cried out, come back, my dear, and be christened, and dinna rin to the hills to be a pagan. So Willie grew better every day thereafter, being brought to bed in the kail yard; but his daughter was brought to bed some months after, which was the cause of the doctor’s mistake.