The dew was yet on the grass, and the sun was not far up the sky.

I had thought that my entry into the cave, my time in it, and my escape had taken many hours, whereas at the most they had occupied two.

It was little more than dawn, such a dawn as walks only on the hilltops.
Before me was the shallow vale with its bracken and sweet grass, and farther on the shining links of the stream, and the loch still grey in the shadow of the beleaguering hills.

Here was a fresh, clean land, a land for homesteads and orchards and children.

All of a sudden I realized that at last I had come out of savagery.