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The Talbots, formerly one of the Eastern Shore's first families, have gone to seed.  Pap is a sodden drunk, decaying in his ruined ancestral home, and three of his sons (William, Carol, and Ezra) are lazy, shiftless young men.

Mulligan, Pap's second son who supports the entire family by oyster fishing, falls in love with wealthy Anna Lee, but when he first kisses her, she calls him "white trash."

Pap dies, and Mulligan, determined that the Talbot name will again be a respected one, turns to robbing ships in the Chesapeake Bay in order to finance educations for his three brothers.

Six years pass.  William becomes a minister, Carol a lawyer, and Ezra a doctor.  Mulligan then sells a ship that he built with his own hands and pays back all those he robbed, thereby bringing about his own arrest.  Placed on trial for piracy, Anna and his brothers come to his defense; found guilty, he is paroled in Anna's care.