The film stars Edmund Gwenn, who plays a chemist, whose son Lawrence (played by Barry MacKay) is attacked on a train. He appears to have shot the man.

Jonathan Dakers' early ambition was to become a great surgeon and to marry Edie Martyn. But, on the death of his father, he is obliged to start work as a partner in a poor general practice in the Black Country. Edie falls in love with Jonathan's brother, Harold, who is killed in the Great War, and Jonathan marries her as planned. It is only afterwards that he realises he now loves another.

Romeo and Juliet in 1930s England. The owner of the mill and the local lord are in conflict over water rights. The lord wins threatening the mill owner with financial ruin.

When ghosts inhabit an Englishwoman's home, Dyall, a ghost hunter of sorts, takes on the poltergeists. Developments reveal a trio of spirits that includes a sailor, the seaman's late wife, and her lover, whom the sailor had shot.