The Half-Hearted. Buchan John
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John Buchan
The Half-Hearted
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664642899
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I EVENING IN GLENAVELIN
CHAPTER II LADY MANORWATER’S GUESTS
CHAPTER IV AFTERNOON IN A GARDEN
CHAPTER V A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS
CHAPTER VII THE MAKERS OF EMPIRE
CHAPTER VIII MR. WRATISLAW’S ADVENT
CHAPTER IX THE EPISODES OF A DAY
CHAPTER XI THE PRIDE BEFORE A FALL
CHAPTER XII PASTORAL AND TRAGEDY
CHAPTER XIII THE PLEASURES OF A CONSCIENCE
CHAPTER XIV A GENTLEMAN IN STRAITS
CHAPTER XV THE NEMESIS OF A COWARD
CHAPTER XVI A MOVEMENT OF THE POWERS
CHAPTER XVII THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON
CHAPTER XVIII THE FURTHER BRINK
CHAPTER XIX THE BRIDGE OF BROKEN HEARTS
CHAPTER XXI IN THE HEART OF THE HILLS
CHAPTER XXIII THE DINNER AT GALETTI’S
CHAPTER XXIV THE TACTICS OF A CHIEF
CHAPTER XXVII THE ROAD TO FORZA
CHAPTER XXX EVENING IN THE HILLS
CHAPTER XXXI EVENTS SOUTH OF THE BORDER
CHAPTER XXXII THE BLESSING OF GAD
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 summer heats.