"Don't, please, write and tell me that we're mad. I know it already; and even if I didn't, every friend we possess has pointed it out. My spirit is quailing at the prospect of life at Easter Hartrigg, because I know what pitiful figures we shall cut as landowners in a country quite strange to us." Young Susan Parsons has just moved, with her unmarried brother Oliver, to a newly-inherited property in the Scottish Highlands. Their neighbors prove a mixed bag, including the towering, kindly Jed Armstrong, a farmer whose land 'marches with' theirs, the local vicar and his family, and the three gossipy Pringle sisters, who travel by donkey-drawn cart and get their knives into one and all. After a bumpy start, with a disagreeable cook and her nincompoop daughter as their only help, Susan and Oliver begin to settle in nicely, and find themselves in the midst of romance, confusion, and earthy hilarity.
