Johnstone of the Border by Harold Bindloss

It was a stormy evening when Whitney caught his first glimpse of Appleyard. He felt disappointed. He had expected to see an ancient Border tower with modern additions; but the low, straight-fronted house did not look much more than a century old. It was solidly built of gray granite, with mullioned windows and a small pepper-box turret at one end, but while it made no pretense of architectural beauty, Whitney admitted that it had some charm. For one thing, Appleyard stood boldly on the breast of a knoll, with dark firs packed closely about it, and the landscape it commanded was ruggedly wild. Bleak pastures and lonely moorland, stained a purple-red, rolled back to the hills that melted into leaden cloud in the north. To the south, a strip of green littoral was dotted with white farmsteads and traversed by the curves of a river that flashed where it caught the light.

Beyond this level strip, the Solway sands ran far out to sea, glowing red in the angry sunset and pierced by channels of slate-green water. In the distance, a narrow white line showed where their edge was washed by the receding tide. On the western shore of the wide estuary, Criffell's lonely height stood out, a harsh dark-blue, against a saffron glare.