A classic novel of Ulster life by one of the twentieth-century's greatest writers. Sarah Gomartin, the servant girl on Andrew Echlin's farm, bears a child to one of Andrew's sons. But which one? Her steadfast refusal over many years to 'bend and contrive things' by choosing one of the brothers reverberates through the puritan Ulster community, alienating clergy and neighbors, hastening her mother's death and casting a cold shadow on the life of her children.