Mary Smith, owner of the Black Swann inn is in debt to Sir John Glutton. Her son Nicholas tries to gather together the money by taking up the guise of the infamous highwayman Dick Turpin. Unfortunately for him, his first victim turns out to be the actual Turpin. When Nicholas is captured by Captain Spiker his mother, an old acquaintance of Dick, asks Turpin to take her son under his wing. The highwayman rescues the lad and gives him the nickname Swiftnick, after another rogue.

Dick thinks Swiftnick isn't cutting it as a highwayman and bribes Tanner the gunsmith into taking the boy in as an apprentice. Glutton and Spiker have come up with a plan to use an actress called Jane Kelsey, who main claim to fame is a performance as Cleopatra, to lure Turpin into a trap.

Turpin intends to find some rest in the little village of Mudbury, but Swiftnick starts bragging about Dick's skills as a prizefighter. An unsuspecting Dick soon finds himself facing the bully Hogg, the accomplice of bible thumping tax collector Father Nightingale. Dick decides to call a favor from an old friend, Tom "The Bristol Butcher" Bracewell, but he disappears shortly before the fight.