Roland walked on with the slow step of disappointment, scanning the faces he met. He knew none. Eight years had passed since his absence, and the place and the people were changed to him. Involuntarily the words of that ever beautiful song, which most of us know by heart, came surging up his memory, as he gazed wistfully from side to side. "Strange to me now are the forms I meet When I visit the dear old town." Strange enough. Was it for this he had come back? Often and often during his wanderings in the far-away African land, had other lines of the same sweet song beaten their refrain in his brain when yearning for Helstonleigh. There was a certain amount of sentiment in Roland Yorke, for all his straightforward practicability. "Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: 'A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'" "I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, And catch in sudden gleams The sheen of the far-surrounding seas And islands that were the Hesperides Of all my boyish dreams. And the burden of that old song, It murmurs and whispers still: 'A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'" There were no seas around Helstonleigh, but the resemblance was near enough for Roland, as it has been for others. Other verses of the song seemed to be strangely realized to him now, as he walked along. "There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak. And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye. And the words of that fatal song Come over me like a chill: 'A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'" "I can see the breezy dome of groves, The shadows of Deering's woods; And the friendships old and the early loves Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves In quiet neighbourhoods. And the verse of that sweet old song, It flutters and murmurs still: 'A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"