Harvest

A remote English village wakes on the morning after harvest, looking forward to a hard-earned day of rest and feasting at the landowner's table. But two conspicuous columns of smoke mar the sky, raising alarm and suspicion in the place of peaceable satisfaction.

Overnight, Master Kent's stables and his dovecote have burned. Walter Thirsk, a relative outsider who left his position as manservant in the manor house to marry a village woman, casts his eye on three local boys and blames their careless tomfoolery.

But the second smoke column comes from the edge of the village land, sent up by newcomers to announce their presence. Rather than search among themselves for a culprit on whom to blame the stable fire,…