We finished our meal, and bade the good wife and her husband an affectionate farewell, the former insisting on Mary’s wrapping herself in her own best plaid. "Ye’ve a long road to travel, lassie," she said, "and ye maunna catch cauld. Tak’ it as a keepsake, and if ye’re ever back in these pairts, dinna forget tae come and see me." I thanked the good man and his wife for their kindness to us, and, Hector leading, we went out into the night. *CHAPTER XLIV* *"QUO VADIS, PETRE?"* Ere the darkness had given place to the dawn we three were lying in a copse of hazel bushes not far from the Castle of Caerlaverock within a stone’s throw of the sea. On leaving Nunholm we had made a detour so as to avoid the town, and struck the road to Glencaple far outside its boundaries. The journey, made in stealth, had been without adventure. Hector led the way; Mary and I followed close behind him arm in arm. We had spoken little; Mary and I hardly at all, for the touch of her arm in mine, tender as a caress, was more eloquent than speech; but Hector found time to tell all he had done since the moment of my escape from the Tolbooth. For him the intervening hours had been crowded. He had gone to the cave at the Linn to fetch the minister to marry us: but he had also devised a means to help us back to England, and it was for this end that he had brought us to the place where we were. "There was juist ae thing I failed to do, for I hadna the time," he said. "I intended to speir again at the widda, for I should ha’e been a prood man tae ha’e been mairried at the same time as yoursels. But the widda maun juist bide my time. She’s kept me waitin’ lang enough. She’ll maybe appreciate me a’ the mair if I keep her waitin’ in turn. Nae doot she’ll miss me, for I’m comin’ wi’ ye as far as the Isle o’ Man. Ye see this affair will mak’ a terrible steer in the toon o’ Dumfries; and it will be safer for me to be oot o’ the road till the storm blaws by. Forby, it will gi’e me the chance o’ introducin’ my magical salve to the Island. Anthony Kerruish, the maister o’ the _Sea-mew_, tells me that it is no kent there, and besides if I had a quate six months in the island I micht get on wi’ that _magnum opus_ o’ mine." Mary and I were delighted to learn that he was coming with us, for well we knew that he could stay behind only at grave risk. As we thanked him, with full hearts, for all he had done, he held up a deprecating hand. "Hoots," he said, "I’ve dune naething: and in ony case I took my fee o’ Mistress Bryden’s cheeks." He laughed quietly as he stole out of the copse.