As he stepped out upon the moor and the chill of dawn struck inward, he did not know that Allan Welsh was watching him from his blindless bedroom.  Dawn is the testing-time of the universe.  Its cool, solvent atmosphere dissolves social amenities.  It is difficult to be courteous, impossible to be polite, in that hour before the heart has realized that its easy task of throwing the blood horizontally to brain and feet has to be exchanged for the harder one of throwing it vertically to the extremities.

Ralph walked slowly and in deep thought through the long avenues of glimmering beeches and under the dry rustle of the quivering poplars.  Then, as the first red of dawn touched his face, he looked about him.  He was clear of the trees now, and the broad open expanse of the green fields and shining water meadows that ring in Loch Grannoch widened out before him.  The winds sighed and rumbled about the hill-tops of the Orchar and the Black Laggan, but in the valley only the cool moist wind of dawn drew largely and statedly to and fro.

Ralph loved Nature instinctively, and saw it as a townbred lad rarely does.  He was deeply read in the more scientific literature of the subject, and had spent many days in his Majesty’s botanic gardens, which lie above the broad breast of the Forth.  He now proved his learning, and with quick, sure eye made it real on the Galloway hills.  Every leaf spoke to him.  He could lie for half a day and learn wisdom from the ant.  He took in the bird’s song and the moth’s flight.  The keepers sometimes wondered at the lights which flashed here and there about the plantations, when in the coolness of a moist evening he went out to entrap the sidelong-dashing flutterers with his sugar-pots.

But since he came to Galloway, and especially since he smelled the smell of the wood-fire set for the blanket-washing above the Crae Water bridge, there were new secrets open to him.  He possessed a voice that could wile a bird off a bought.  His inner sympathy with wild and tame beasts alike was such that as he moved quietly among a drowsing, cud-chewing herd on the braes of Urioch not a beast moved.

Among them a wild, untamed colt stood at bay, its tail arched with apprehension, yet sweeping the ground, and watched him with flashing eyes of suspicion.  Ralph held out his hand slowly, more as if it were growing out of his side by some rapid natural process than as if he were extending it.  He uttered a low “sussurrus” of coaxing and invitation, all the while imperceptibly decreasing his distance from the colt.  The animal threw back its head, tossed its mane in act to flee, thought better of it and dropped its nose to take a bite or two of the long coarse grass.  Then again it looked up and continued to gaze, fascinated at the beckoning and caressing fingers.  At last, with a little whinny of pleasure, the colt, wholly reassured, came up and nestled a wet nose against Ralph’s coat.  He took the wild thing’s neck within the arch of his arm, and the two new friends stood awhile in grave converse.