In Britannia in 130, a young Roman officer named Marcus Flavius Aquila and his freed slave Esca search for the Ninth Legion's gold eagle standard, which vanished with the legion 13 years earlier.

A young medical student visits the Blasket Islands, off the coast of Ireland, during the holidays and becomes charmed with the place and its people. He falls in love with a local girl, who is betrothed to a local man. The two men meet and become fast friends, and the student realizes the hopelessness in his love of the girl of his friend. He leaves but, after his graduation from Trinity College, he returns to cast his lot with these simple fishermen