The rain and the wind had been his companions from childhood; the sunshine and the seasons belonged to him as environment of daily life. He minded the manifestations of nature as little as the ponies that now scampered past him in a whinnying drove; he was young and as yet knew no pain; he regarded the advent of winter without fear, and welcomed the equinox of autumn as indifferently as the first frost or the spring rain. These things only concerned him when they bore upon husbandry and the business of life. Now, like a map rolled out before his eyes, lay the man's new home and extended the theatre of his future days. Upon this great stage he would move henceforth, pursue hope, fulfil destiny, and perchance win the things that he desired to win. The accidents of wind and storm surrounding this introduction did not influence the newcomer or affect his mind. Intensity and rare powers of faith belonged to him; but imagination was little indicated in his character. His interest now poured out upon the cultivated earth spread below, and had his actual future habitation been visible instead of hidden, it had not attracted him. That behind the sycamores there stood a roof-tree henceforth to shield his head, mattered nothing; that within its walls were now congregated his future master and companions, did not impress itself upon his thoughts. He was occupied with the fertile acres, now fading into night, and with the cattle that pastured round about upon the Moor. Familiar with the face of the earth seen afar off, he calculated to a few tons what hay had recently been saved here, appreciated certain evidences of prosperity, as revealed by the aspect and position of the fields; noted with satisfaction the marks of agricultural wisdom; frowned at signs that argued other views than his own. He pictured himself at work, longed to be at it, yearned for outlets to his great, natural energies and vigorous bent of mind. Death had thrown him into the market of men, and, after three months' idleness, he found a new task, on a part of the Moor remote from his former labours. But the familiar aspects of the waste attracted him irresistibly. He rejoiced to return, to feel the heath under his feet, and see the manner of his future toil clearly written under his eyes. It seemed to him that Ruddyford, with its garden, tenements, and outlying fields, was but an unfinished thing waiting for his sure hand to complete. He would strengthen the walls, widen the borders, heighten the welfare of this farm. No glance backward into the glories of the sunset did he give, for he was young. The peace of Lydford's woodland glades and the lush, low lands beneath, drew no desire from him. Villages, hamlets, and the gregarious life of them, attracted him not at all. The sky to live under, a roof to sleep under, Dartmoor to work upon: these were the things that he found precious at this season. And Fate had granted them all.