Study for obedience

A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs - collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed particularly in her case.