Major John Peel returns to England, following Napoleon's Waterloo defeat, and renews his acquaintance with Lucy Merrall, but she tells him she is engaged to be married. He later learns that, Cravens, the man she is to marry already has a wife. He also learns that Craven cleaned out Lucy's father in a crooked gambling game, and Lucy is paying the price to hold the family home together.

A preppy American hustler arrives in a small Irish town, where he informs the residents that he is researching the life of a General John Regan. The local physician, Dr O'Grady, calls the American's bluff by manufacturing the non-existent hero and having a monument unveiled to him with full civic honours.