Chris Guthrie was born and grows up in a family where her mother died from repeated childbirths, her two younger siblings go to live with their aunt and uncle in Aberdeen, her brother Will doesn't get on well with her father and leaves for Argentina with his young wife, and her father later suffers a stroke and then passes away. Chris gets married with a farmer Ewan and has a happy family, but just until the World War I breaks out, as Ewan joins the army and then is shot as a deserter.