The schoolmaster’s daughter falls in love with Tom Weaver, an eccentric character, who supports himself by doing odd jobs of carpentering, but is always ready to drop his tools and snuffle a prayer or a sermon if he can get a handful of people to listen. Her father disapproves of her choice. Weaver, feeling that he is not wanted, keeps away from his sweetheart, spending his leisure in exhortations to the poor whites of Claybank to mend their ways. To divert his daughter’s mind from her lover, the schoolmaster takes her to visit two girl cousins in a neighboring village. He must go back to Claybank, and she says she will walk home. She does not arrive, and a search is instituted. Learning that Weaver is not at his shop, the schoolmaster becomes convinced that the carpenter is responsible for his daughter’s disappearance. In the woods between Claybank and the village, the girl’s hat is found. Signs of a struggle are apparent. With a posse of friends at his back, the schoolmaster visits the slums, where Weaver is almost always to be found. A halfwit meets them and says that the girl is in the shack of his brother, the town bully. The schoolmaster knows that his daughter has met the town bully while out walking with Weaver and is afraid of him. Before the door of the shack the posse finds the bully on guard, with an axe in his hand. Believing they are after him, the bully shows fight. As he is swinging the axe, the door opens and Weaver appears. Wresting the axe from the bully, he knocks him down and stands guard over him until the sheriff arrives and takes him to prison. The girl comes out of the shack and is clasped in her father’s arms. She tells how, on the way home, she was seized by the bully and taken to the shack. His halfwit brother had learned of her presence and, to get even with the bully, who had won all his money at gambling, had told Weaver. The carpenter had rescued her just before the posse arrived. On learning how greatly he has misjudged Weaver, the schoolmaster consents to receive him as his son-in-law.