THE HALF-HEARTED

PART I

CHAPTER I

EVENING IN GLENAVELIN

From the heart of a great hill land Glenavelin stretches west and south
to the wider Gled valley, where its stream joins with the greater water
in its seaward course. Its head is far inland in a place of mountain
solitudes, but its mouth is all but on the lip of the sea, and salt
breezes fight with the flying winds of the hills. It is a land of green
meadows on the brink of heather, of far-stretching fir woods that climb
to the edge of the uplands and sink to the fringe of corn. Nowhere is
there any march between art and nature, for the place is in the main for
sheep, and the single road which threads the glen is little troubled
with cart and crop-laden wagon. Midway there is a stretch of wood and
garden around the House of Glenavelin, the one great dwelling-place in
the vale. But it is a dwelling and a little more, for the home of the
real lords of the land is many miles farther up the stream, in the
moorland house of Etterick, where the Avelin is a burn, and the hills
hang sharply over its source. To a stranger in an afternoon it seems a
very vale of content, basking in sun and shadow, green, deep, and
silent. But it is also a place of storms, for its name means the "glen
of white waters," and mist and snow are commoner in its confines than