In following the growth to manhood of young Andy Walker, the novel provides a realistic depiction of the lives and living conditions of the labouring poor - the 'cotfolk' - in the Machars of Wigtownshire. The son of an abusive father, Andy leaves school at thirteen and works for a succession of corrupt and cruel land-owners. Driven from one estate for refusing to marry the mother of his illegitimate child, he drifts into a life of petty crime, all the time sinking further into a continuing cycle of violence and poverty. A chance encounter leads to the prospect of a professional boxing career, but realizing himself to be a true son of the soil, Andy returns to farm work, accepting his destiny with elegiac resignation. Public reaction was sharply divided between those who loathed it and those who thought it true; and the controversy around it even reached the House of Commons.