On a wild stormy night in 1813, Nathan Jago, drift fisherman, ex-prizefighter and lord of the manor of Polrudden, rescues a young boy from a drowning mother's arms as a French ship founders on the jagged Cornish rocks. It is an act that will profoundly affect his destiny. Despite hard times, Nathan and his wife Amy adopt Jean-Paul and bring him up with their own son. Nathan considers a return to the ring in the struggle to make a living and keep the ancient house in the family. But events conspire to involve him in a royalist intrigue that eventually leads to Paris - where a beautiful marquise and a dashing count sow the seeds both of tragedy and renewed hope...