Elizabeth Goudge

[from inner dj flap] No one who has followed Miss Goudge's writing could ask for a more perfect blending of her remarkable talents than is to be found in this modern romance of the Highlands of Scotland and Skye. A story of today, it draws its inspiration from the '45, when the clans gathered under the banner of the Young Pretender. The novel opens with the arrival of lovely Judy Cameron at Glen Suilag and tells of her meeting with Ian Macdonald and his man Angus (surely one of the most crotchety and lovable servants who ever growled his way through a novel.

On a sudden whim, Judy had persuaded her father and mother, and Charles, her fiancé, to leave London for the North, and she had further persuaded Sir James, who was always putty in his daughter's hands, to rent, sight unseen, Macdonald's draughty Scottish manor. Sir James took immediately to the fishing in the loch, Lady Cameron complained alternately about the strength of the tea and the weakness of the plumbing, and Charles faded shortly into the background. Judy felt as if she had come alive for the first time. The brittle round of London society seemed like a dream. She was sure that she had always belonged to the Highlands. Ian Macdonald, of course, was one reason, but there was more to it than just the excitement of having aroused the interest of a handsome young Scot. Old Angus, the house in the glen, the loch, and the surrounding mountains, all seemed to have struck some mysterious chord in her memory.

And so Miss Goudge weaves her tale of Ian, Judy, and old Angus, a tale of a love and a loyalty which were too deeply graven for time to destroy. And as the modern story of Judy and Ian unfolds, another story begins to take shape -- a story of another Macdonald and his Judith, and of another Angus who polished a claymore with better will than table silver.

The idea behind The Middle Window is not new to fiction or to the theater. Berkeley Square used it to advantage, only a few years ago. The conception of a relationship so strong that it can survive the passage of the centuries has always fascinated the creative writer, but we doubt whether it has ever been put to a more fascinating use than here.