Chronicles of the Canongate is a whirlwind adventure following the adventures of the MacTavish family of outlaws. Hamish MacTavish Mohr ("Senior"), a daring freebooter, meets his death in an encounter with the Saxon red-coats, by whom the Highlands were garrisoned after the battle of Culloden. His wife, who had shared all his dangers, strives to inspire their only son with his father's love of adventure and hatred of servile toil. The son refuses his inheritance of the lifestyle. Consequently, he enlists in one of the regiments formed in Scotland to oppose the French in the American war of independence.