Jill Crewe has left Chatton and is now living in a Scottish Highland castle with her mother and new step-father. She has a beautiful young grey horse, Balius, but she yearns for an older, trained mount so she can compete in open events in the coming year. She accepts a job as a secretary to Bryony Peach in Cornwall in order to earn money towards the purchase of a second horse. She drives from Scotland to Cornwall to begin work, taking Balius with her and stopping along the way with various horsey characters such as Ned Sperrit - a horse dealer, Charles a racehorse trainer and his glamorous wife, Venetia, and the Merrivales - a jolly family of five children living on Dartmoor. In Cornwall she finds herself drawn into the smuggling activities of an unlikely bunch of criminals.
Jill Crewe has left Chatton and is now living in a Scottish Highland castle with her mother and new step-father. She has a beautiful young grey horse, Balius, but she yearns for an older, trained mount so she can compete in open events in the coming year. She accepts a job as a secretary to Bryony Peach in Cornwall in order to earn money towards the purchase of a second horse. She drives from Scotland to Cornwall to begin work, taking Balius with her and stopping along the way with various horsey characters such as Ned Sperrit - a horse dealer, Charles a racehorse trainer and his glamorous wife, Venetia, and the Merrivales - a jolly family of five children living on Dartmoor. In Cornwall she finds herself drawn into the smuggling activities of an unlikely bunch of criminals.
