He caught the sound of a cart from the Glen, and a sudden fear overcame him at the meet-of the first Drumtochty man. His first movement was to the shelter of the wood; then he lay down behind the gorse and watched the bend of the road. It was a double cart, laden with potatoes for Kildrummie station, and the very horses had a homely look; while the driver was singing in a deep, mellow voice, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot.” The light was on his face, and the wanderer recognised him at once. They had been at school together, and were of the same age, but there was not a grey hair in young Burnbrae's beard, nor a line on his face. As the cart passed, Grant watched the tram, and marked that the Christian name was in fresh paint. “It 's James, no John, noo. Burnbrae hesna feenished his lease, an' a'm thinkin' Jean 'ill no hae lasted long aifter him. He wes a gude man, an' he hed gude sons.” The cart was a mile on the road, and Burn-brae's song had long died into silence among the pines, before Grant rose from the ground and went on his way. There is a certain point where the road from Kildrummie disentangles itself from the wood, and begins the descent to Tochty Bridge. Drumtochty exiles used to stand there for a space and rest their eyes on the Glen which they could now see, from the hills that made its western wall to the woods of Tochty that began below the parish kirk, and though each man might not be able to detect the old home, he had some landmark--a tree or a rise of the hill--to distinguish the spot where he was born, and if such were still his good fortune, where true hearts were waiting to bid him welcome. Two Drumtochty students returning in the spring with their honours might talk of learned studies and resume their debates coming through the wood, but as the trees thinned conversation languished, and then the lads would go over to the style. No man said aught unto his neighbour as they drank in the Glen, but when they turned and went down the hill, a change had come over them. “Man, Dauvid,” Ross would say--with three medals to give to his mother, who had been all day making ready for his arrival, and was already watching the upland road--“far or near, ye 'ill never fin' a bonnier burn than the Tochty; see yonder the glisk o 't through the bridge as it whummels ower the stanes and shimmers in the evening licht.” “An' Hillocks's haughs,” cried Baxter, who was supposed to think in Hebrew and had won a Fellowship for foreign travel, “are green an' sweet the nicht, wi' the bank o' birks ahint them, an' a' saw the hill abune yir hame, Jock, an' it wes glistenin' like the sea.”