For a whole year, a shadow lies over the village of Garven. When John Hunter's wife is paralysed after the birth of their daughter, he employs Hannah as nurse housekeeper and sets in train a series of events that will destroy him. Hannah is ambitious and blind to anything but her own interests. Hunter is superstitious and God fearing. When things go badly wrong after he breaks a promise to his wife, he believes that a malign influence is at work, ruining both his personal and his business life. Set in a small Scottish town, in the 1860s, against the back -ground of the last days of railway building, the story centres round the machinations of the malevolent Hannah. The cast includes the owner of the inn who embezzles some of the railway company's cash; his daughter, who has to pick up the pieces; Tom the workhouse boy; and of course the baby, whose fate rests in Hannah's hands. In the background, are the people of the town, the Merchants Guild, the mill workers, and the railwaymen and their families, who can only watch as events unfold.