So we parted, and I walked on ahead, until as I descended a steep hill I saw the end of the bridge before me. I found Mitchell’s Close without difficulty and entered it. The houses within it were flinging back the glare of the sun from their whitewashed walls. I knocked at the second door on the left, and after a little it was opened by an old woman. Holding the latch in her hand, she stood between the half-open door and the wall as though to block the passage.
"Wha may ye be?" she said. "Ye ha’ena’ a kent face."
"I am," I said, speaking low, "a friend of Hector the packman."
She threw the door wide open at once, saying, "Come awa ben." I entered, and immediately she shut and barred the door behind us, and led the way into the kitchen, saying: "Ony frien’ o’ Hector the packman is welcome here. Can I get ye onything to eat?"
As I had not broken my fast since leaving New Abbey, I was ready to do justice to the meal which she made haste to spread before me. Remembering Hector’s warning, I held my tongue, and as she waited upon me the old woman kept her counsel to herself. I could see that she was studying me closely; and when the meal was over she said, suddenly:
"So ye’re a frien’ o’ Hector’s, are ye? Whaur’s the man noo?"
"When I left him," I replied, "he was making his way to his own lodging."
"Nae doot, nae doot; and by this time I jalouse he’s on the road to Locharbriggs."
"If ye are a frien’ o’ Hector’s," she continued, "ye’ve nae doot heard aboot the widow at Locharbriggs."
"Oh yes," I said. "She bulks largely in his affections."
The old woman laughed heartily. "She does that, the silly auld man, but he’d better look somewhere else, for she winna ha’e him. I ken her weel; she’s my dochter."
When the afternoon was mellowing into early evening I stood upon Devorgilla’s Bridge watching the river. Much had happened to me since last I was there. I had drunk deep of joy and sorrow; and as I looked down upon the slow-moving water, memory smote me with both hands. I laid my arms upon the parapet of the wall and stood at gaze, but though I looked before me, my mind was wandering backwards across the chequered, love-lit, blood-stained months that lay behind me. The mood passed and my eyes followed the stream as it issued from underneath the dark arches and flowed slowly on until, in the distance, glistening like a silver band, it swept round a bend and was lost to view. To my right, on the brow of a hill, stood a windmill, its great arms aswing with hesitant gait in the wind. Beyond the windmill the hills sloped down to the river, studded here and there by a copse of trees, or the white gable of a cottage flinging back a ray of sunlight. To my left was the town of Dumfries, with the Sands sloping down from the nearer houses to the river, and the stately spire of St. Michael’s Church challenging the sky in the near distance. Beyond, rose a pleasant, tree-crowned hill, on whose slopes I could see the figures of sheep and cattle.