Nellie March and Jill Banford manage an ailing Berkshire farm, a task which is made all the more complicated by the frequent rampages of a local fox through their chicken coop. When a young soldier turns up and begins to wrest control of the farm by asserting his own ideas for its management, the two women must find ways to react to this new fox in their midst. This is a potent study of the question of power and authority, and a realistic portrayal of England around the beginning of World War I.