Dark prophecies and ominously symbolic events beset the romance of Edgar, Master of Ravenswood, and Lucy Ashton, daughter of the man who has displaced the ancient Ravenswood family from its ancestral home. Sir William Ashton, the wily and self-seeking Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, has used his power to claim the Ravenswood estate, leaving Edgar to brood on his family's wrongs in the lonely tower of Wolf's Crag. His desire for vengeance is challenged and eventually defeated by his love for Sir William's gentle daughter, but his new spirit of reconciliation is frustrated by political divisions and the determined opposition of Lucy's domineering mother.