Summary
Beneath the cathedral-high silence of California’s primeval Redwoods, a patriarchal covenant—half Highland superstition, half frontier opportunism—chains infant Madelon to Lot Gordon’s dynastic ambitions. Years later, the forest’s coppery dusk witnesses her rebellion: a trembling blade, a man’s blood on moss, and a sacrificial lie that ricochets through the settlement like a bullet through timber. Burr, Lot’s cousin and the true object of the girl’s awakened longing, swallows culpability with stoic fatalism, while Madelon barters herself to the wounded bridegroom for a scrap of ink that might unshackle her lover from the noose. The settlement’s moral scaffolding—already warped by gossip, moonshine, and the sour clang of church bells—splinters when a colossal redwood, ancient as guilt, crashes onto Lot’s nuptial hopes, erasing debt and destiny in one thunderous crack. What remains is a lovers’ exile into the fog, their footprints filling with needles, the forest absolving what scripture would not.
Synopsis
Scotsman Sandy MacTavish, living in the small California village of Redwoods, betrothes his baby Madelon, as is the village custom, to wealthy Lot Gordon. When Madelon grows up and falls in love with Lot's cousin Burr, Sandy's sense of honor will not let him release her. After Madelon learns of Burr's betrothal to Dorothy Fair, the village flirt, she stalks out of a dance into the woods, where Lot tries to kiss her. Not knowing who he is, Madelon stabs Lot, and Burr, without Madelon's approval, takes the blame for the crime. When Madelon's pleas for Burr incite the townspeople, she convinces Lot to write a statement absolving his cousin of the crime in return for her hand in marriage when he recovers. After she stops Burr's lynching at the last moment, Madelon is freed from her obligation to Lot when a redwood falls on him just before their wedding night, leaving her and Burr free to marry.
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