Sinopsis

Within the long, low cottage the black smoke-polished rafters rose in inky darkness above the rough whitewashed walls, and the mud floor showed the traces of past leaks in many a hill and hollow. The two tiny windows were set breathlessly agape, and through the open door a flood of hot bright sunshine threw a bar of mote-speckled light across the room, gilding the heads of the scholars who sat swinging their legs on the benches and sending a sort of reflected glint from the white wall up into the sombre shadow of the roof. Such was the Episcopal Grant-in-Aid School of Gleneira one July day, some ten years after Paul Macleod had driven down in the mist to catch the Oban steamer. Without, was a pale, heat-blanched sky set in tall spectral-looking hills which had lost contour and individuality in a haze, blending rock and heather, grass and fern, hollows and heights, into one uniform tint of transparent blue. Between the mountains there was a little level growth of green corn flecked by yellow marigolds, white ox-eyes, and scarlet poppies; then a stretch of dusty road, ending in cool shadows of sycamore and pine, beside the school-house garden. A wonderful garden this. Of Lil...