Set before the English Civil War in the late 1630s, near the village of Weme, in Shropshire, the story follows Emily Trewlawny, her Royalist farming family, and the ensuing struggle before her sea captain father returns home. Whilst at the same time, the Pyms, a Parliamentarian family, living two miles apart, with opposite beliefs, find their friendship through circumstance lead on to their alliance against the Royalist community. Conflict ensues, involving murder and a hair-raising stagecoach ride, the ultimate showdown, when in the pursuit of a possible guilty party, when the hiding of an accused causes the inevitable conflict.