Joan is the waitress at Pilchard's Tavern, located in Polperro, a village and fishing port on the south-east coast of Cornwall. She has a secret crush on Daniel Reynell, the Reaper of a fishing boat, but he is already engaged. During a violent storm, and a kidnapping of her beloved, while trying to intervene to help him, she borrows a farmer's horse, but is sentenced to death for it... How will it end?