We drank our ale, and leaving the Inn turned into the precincts of the Abbey, where for the first time I had an opportunity of gazing upon its ruined splendour. Rarely have I seen such beauty in decay--the mellow light of the evening lending to the red sandstone of the aisles, the choir and the great square tower a rosy hue that made them singularly beautiful. The packman led the way and halted before a richly ornate stone that rested on a pedestal below the great Gothic window. He took his bonnet off reverently and I followed suit, and together we stood in silence. "She lies here," he said, with a break in his voice, and when I looked at him there were tears in his eyes. He sighed as though the stone covered the remains of someone very dear to him. I knew what was in his mind. This brave follower of the open road, this deliverer of maidens in distress, this egotistical packman, and self-styled scholar was an incorrigible sentimentalist. He was thinking, I knew, of Devorgilla’s beautiful devotion to her husband, but the widow at Locharbriggs was in his thoughts as well. He turned and laid a hand upon my arm as he donned his bonnet. "Whaur are ye sleepin’ the nicht?" he asked. The question surprised me, for I had taken it for granted that we should stay at the village inn. "I suppose," I said, "that I can get a bed in the tavern." "Nae doot, nae doot," he said, "if so you like, but I never sleep in a bed when I’m oot on the road. It’s safer to sleep in the open, especially when ye wear a wooden leg that ye dinna exactly need. Folks are inquisitive. Come awa back to the inn wi’ me. You can sleep there if ye like, but I’ll come back here. It’ll no’ be the first time I ha’e slept by the graveside o’ Devorgilla." We returned to the inn where I had no difficulty in procuring a bed. Hector shouldered his pack and took his way back to the Abbey, but he was up betimes and was hammering at my door with his heavy-headed stick before I was awake. We breakfasted and set out for Dumfries. Hector had lit his pipe and trudged along beside me in silence. Left to my own thoughts, I began to study him. Since we had joined company, he had shown several phases of character difficult to reconcile. In the presence of Sir Thomas Dalzell he had seemed to be an avowed enemy of the Covenanters, yet, when Dalzell and his troopers were at a safe distance, he had displayed contempt and bitter hatred for them. Then there was the attack on the soldiers in the little copse by the roadside on our way to New Abbey. What was he? Was the calling of a packman, like his false beard and his unnecessary wooden-leg, merely a mask? I was puzzled, but I determined that ere our journey should come to an end I would do my utmost to unravel his secret.