When, in May 1835, the orphaned Will Smythe is sent from the Poor House to live and work at Stower Farm, it looks as if there could be a rosy future ahead of him. Elderly Farmer and Missus Stower are childless; and local folk speculate that Will may inherit the farm, one day. These imagined future prospects encourage the impoverished Wyles family to plan for the improvement of their own situation through the marriage of Will to Betsy Wyles, the youngest of Widow Wyles' daughters. All seems to go according to plan, until - as the farmer predicts - the inevitable disappointments and trials of...