Just before the first trouble of the dawn these sounds multiplied. Ever and again, though at long intervals, there was the splash of a fish, hawking along the under-surface of the tarn for the twilight-ephemeridæ. The hoarse gurgling call of the capercailzie fell through the pine-glades. From invisible pastures came the first muffled, uncertain lowing of the shaggy bulls, standing beyond the still-crouching drowsy kye, whose breaths made a faint grey mist in the darkness. The wind rose and fell. It had now a different sound, as there is a different note in the ascending and decrescent song of the lark. It was, however, still confined to the heights and the upland moors. With the first sunflood there is something of the same chemic change in the wind as there is in the sea. An electric tremor goes through it. Its impalpable nerves thrill: its invisible pulse beats. Long before Nial, in the deep twilight of the forest, saw that morning had come, he was aware of it from the cry of the wind, as it leaped against the sun. He stirred, listening. The call of that bodiless voice he knew and loved so well had suddenly grown clearer. It was as though the invisible Lute-player who shepherds the clouds with his primeval music had breathed a high, resonant note. To the keen ears of Nial this was enough. He knew that the wind had moved from the south to the north-west: a thing easy to tell at once in the neighbourhood of pines, but to be known of few when heard against remote heights and in the dark. The dwarf rose and began to pace restlessly to and fro. Once or twice he stood still and shook himself; then, with a searching but unexpectant glance around him, resumed his aimless wandering.