Ralf Lassiter is an academic, thirty years old, unmarried and unattached. He suspends his career in London for a year to care for his dying father, now living on a remote hillside farm. Ralf is a tall, pale, shy, unworldly vegetarian, strongly opposed to blood sports and all forms of hunting. He has the misfortune to fall in love with the wild and beautiful Sonia Shillabeer, the owner of the farm where his father now lives. She is a crack shot with a gun and hunts deer on foot with the help of a highly intelligent lurcher dog. Ralf's love affair with Sonia does not proceed smoothly.