Josh and Miriam Retallick, along with their grandson Ben, seem almost a part of the wild and rugged Cornish landscape of 1913. Yet, as a revolutionary spirit of change sweeps across the country with terrifying speed, endangering the institutions of both mining and marriage, the Retallicks symbolize Bodmin Moor at its most vulnerable. The advent of trade unions and strike actions pit owner against worker, compromising Ben's position in the community and threatening the future of the tin mining industry. And the presence of Ben's cousin, Emma Cotton, who is inspired by the blossoming Suffragette movement, is equally unsettling. Events, however, are soon to take an even more unexpected turn, with the onset of the Great War.