Summary

In Chapter 1 of The Song – Ploughing – the reader is introduced to the protagonist, a young woman called Chris Guthrie, during a drought in Kinraddie. Chris remembered that there was always plenty of rain up near Aberdeen, where she and her family had lived before her father John took over the lease at Blawearie in Kinraddie.

When Chris’s mother Jean and her father John first met, John’s face used to turn black with rage because Jean’s beauty tempted him to have sex with her, which she would not permit until after they were married. After they were married, they had Chris and her brother Will then later two more sons called Dod and Alec. Jean complained that she didn’t want to have any more children but John couldn’t resist his lust for her and, due to the lack...