Story of four youngsters who discover birds' nest thieves on a sanctuary island.From story by Mary Cathcart Borer.

In rural Norfolk, villagers are spurred to action when it is announced that the nearby RAF station is taking over the Island of Children, a much-loved and untouched bird sanctuary, for rocket practice.

After losing their father in the Boer War, orphaned brothers Harry and Davy must leave their home in Scotland to live with their grandmother and cantankerous grandfather in Nova Scotia. The boys want nothing more than a pet dog, but their grandfather refuses to get them one. Then, when the brothers find an abandoned baby, they decide to keep it – but the foundling may not have been abandoned after all.

A starchy parliamentary delegation is sent to a remote Scottish Highlands community, where the residents are protesting the poor condition of their road by withholding their taxes, and spend a few days among the locals.

Captain Horatio Hornblower leads his ship HMS Lydia on a perilous transatlantic voyage, during which his faithful crew battle both a Spanish warship and a ragged band of Central American rebels.

A successful artist recalls his life in the tenements of the Glasgow slums. In flashback his recalls the events and characters he shared with in a slum tenement building.