In the summer of 1765 Darsie Latimer sets out to discover the secret of his parentage in a journey to the wilds of Dumfriesshire. But very soon he discovers that he must confront not geographical but ideological wilds, for he is kidnapped by Edward Hugh Redgauntlet and involved in a last, fictional, attempt to restore the Stuarts to the British throne. The violent past is repeatedly recalled: the oral diablerie of the inset 'Wandering Willie's Tale', probably the greatest short story ever written in Scots, provides a grotesque vision of the structures of an older Scotland. It is this older Scotland which Redgauntlet wishes to restore.