On a moonlit evening just before the American Revolution in a time of political rebellion against British rule, Robin Molineux arrives at the ferry landing of a sizeable Massachusetts town. A country boy of about eighteen, Robin wears secondhand and homemade clothing, and he carries a cudgel consisting of an oak sapling with part of its root attached. He assumes that any passerby will be eager to tell him the way to the home of his kinsman, Major Molineux. However, he soon finds that directions will not be so easy to obtain.

The first person Robin meets is a well-dressed old man who coughs repeatedly. Robin takes hold of the old man’s skirt and asks if he knows the way to Major Molineux’s home. The gentleman responds angrily that he does not know the man, demands that Robin remove his hand, and threatens to have him put in the stocks for lack of respect. A nearby barbershop door is open, and those inside are delighted to witness Robin’s humiliation. Surprised, “shrewd” Robin, as he is repeatedly designated by the narrator, attributes the behavior to the old man’s being from the country and lacking the breeding to be civil to strangers. He even considers hitting the man on the nose.

Robin proceeds to an inn, where the cordial innkeeper assumes he is a possible patron. Robin infers that the innkeeper treats him well because he sees a family resemblance to Major Molineux, so with a great deal of confidence he admits that he is nearly penniless and is only there to inquire the way to Major Molineux’s home. Immediately, everyone in the tavern becomes hostile. The innkeeper pretends to see a resemblance between Robin and a runaway apprentice depicted on a wanted poster, and he rudely urges the boy to move on. Robin, again “shrewdly,” assumes the change in behavior is due to his confession of an empty pocket, but he thinks it strange that his poverty should outweigh his connection to his important kinsman. Once again, he contemplates physical retaliation, thinking that, if he could only meet the hostile men back in the woods where he and his oak sapling grew up, he would teach them some manners.

Robin’s next encounter is with a young woman wearing a scarlet petticoat who behaves with a sly freedom. When he asks about his kinsman, she replies that he dwells with her and invites Robin in, but he doubts that she is telling the truth. Before Robin succumbs to the woman’s temptations, the night watchman appears, and she disappears back into her house. The watchman is rude to Robin, threatening to put him in the stocks and laughing to himself when Robin asks about Major Molineux. Robin begins to believe he is under a spell.

After meeting groups of men who talk to him in a strange language and curse him when he cannot reply, the frustrated Robin determines to find answers. Using his cudgel as a barrier, he stops the next passerby and demands to know where his kinsman lives. Robin is astonished to see that the man’s face is painted half black and half red so that he looks fiendish. The stranger advises Robin that if he waits at that spot for an hour, he will see Major Molineux pass by. The ever-shrewd Robin categorizes the encounter as one of the many strange sights a traveler is likely to see on a journey.

Robin sits before a church contemplating his experiences and, in a dreamlike state, visualizing his family back home. This pleasant reverie ends, however, as he imagines his family...