"I'm a damned dangerous fellow, there's no doubt about that. Perhaps I'll kill a rebel some day, and then they'll take me to the sessions and the assizes. Well, there's many a worse fate than that, there is But if I ever kill, I'd like it to be in open fight on the hills like this -- like this, under the bright sun, in the soft morning, with all the moor and valleys still, and the larks singing "

Speaking to himself is young Irishman Dyck Calhoun, as open-hearted, generous and spirited as they come -- but also as intemperate and undisciplined as youth can be. From somewhere within, though, he feels the touch of a wind of change -- something that tells him he may yet make something of himself. As he has this feeling, he hears a voice singing.

A girl appears who has been tramping over the hills for hours -- and she looks beautiful, and utterly content in being alone. She wears a gown of dark gold, with little green ribbons here and there. All her beauty has the slender fullness of a quail.

And Dyck looks upon her as if lost in a dream.