This is one of his Scottish border novels, which talk of wealth, poverty and class war in a humane and gentle way. Another is “Sir Gibbie”, which I read in English translation by Elizabeth Yeats McGreal. I am reading an ebook of Warlock o’ Glenwarlock which retains the dialogue in Scots brogue. This takes a bit of effort to mentally translate it, but it is worth the effort.
I note with pleasure that the old laird’s favorite reading material is the Journal of George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, and that the moral framework of the tale is very Foxian. The plot is like that of a mystery thriller with elements of the supernatural, though, in contradistinction to MacDonald’s mystic and fantasy writings, the ghosts and kelpies are not made into actual characters.
MacDonald is someone I would have liked to have tea with, and I anticipate that his preaching was universalist and uplifting as well