An orphan named Innocence leaves her county home after her foster-father dies. She travels to the city and makes a living as a novelist. Subsequently, she has an affair with a painter named Amadis de Jocelyn, who later dumps her.
Middle-aged Glasgow grocer Dickson McCunn ventures into the Scottish countryside in search of adventure, and finds a Russian princess imprisoned in a castle. Aided by a gang of Gorbals Die-Hards and a young Englishman, he rescues her from her captors and proves a hero, in spite of his qualms.