Lizzie Devlin is orphaned and living in Liverpool with her Aunt Annie, Uncle Rupe and two boy cousins in Cranberry Court, within a stone's throw of the canal. Lizzie loves her aunt but is hated by her uncle and escapes whenever she can to play by the canal. She becomes firm friends with Geoff Gardiner, who is from the Father Brannigan orphan asylum, and is teaching him to swim when Clem Gilligan rescues the pair of them from drowning. Clem works on the canal boat, The Liverpool Rose, plying between Leeds and Liverpool on the great canal and each of the three find the other's life fascinating. Geoff is a bright boy and gets a good job in a bank, meaning to rise in the world. Lizzie works in the perfume factory and does her best to keep the peace at home, where things deteriorate as Uncle Rupe grows surlier and more violent. Eventually, the worst happens, and Lizzie is forced to flee from the Court or risk serious injury, perhaps even death. Her first instinct is to make for the canal... but finding Clem is not so easy...