which it foamed. Even the leafless hedges had their woody odors,
and stone dykes their musty smell of decaying mosses and lichens.

Bobby knew the pause at the toll-bar in the valley, and the mixed
odors of many passing horses and men, there. He knew the smells
of poultry and cheese at a dairy-farm; of hunting dogs and
riding-leathers at a sportsman's trysting inn, and of grist and
polluted water at a mill. And after passing the hilltop toll-bar
of Fairmilehead, dipping across a narrow valley and rounding the
base of a sentinel peak, many tame odors were left behind. At the
buildings of the large, scattered farms there were smells of
sheep, and dogs and barn yards. But, for the most part, after the
road began to climb over a high shoulder of the range, there was
just one wild tang of heather and gorse and fern, tingling with
salt air from the German Ocean.

When they reached Cauldbrae farm, high up on the slope, it was
entirely dark. Lights in the small, deep-set windows gave the
outlines of a low, steep-roofed, stone farm-house. Out of the
darkness a little wind blown figure of a lassie
fled down the brae to meet the cart, and an eager little voice,
as clear as a hill-bird's piping, cried out:

"Hae ye got ma ain Bobby, faither?"

"Ay, lassie, I fetched 'im hame," the farmer roared back, in his
big voice.

Then the cart was stopped for the wee maid to scramble up over a
wheel, and there were sweet little sounds of kissing and muffled