The Stray Horse

Sometimes important encounters occur in the blink of an eye. Literally: the eye flashes aside for a moment, alerted by a subliminal image, and into that eye falls that other person. In this case, a horse caught in sheep wire.
It could also be that the horse was calling the man telepathically. Horses can do that, especially if they interact with people a lot, and this is an old greengrocer's cart horse.
The man frees the horse and goes to take care of it. Walking along roads and the dike, where there is plenty to graze, building a stable.
Then some successive interventions by strangers happen and they become outlaws.