The wealthy farmer sits safely on his ancestral farm, and the hard-working tenant farmer lives on the hill below. The horse dealer at the coach station will trick the innocent farmer, who is not so innocent after all, with cunning tricks. The mischievous boy who bullies the servants when his mother and father are away, the kind-hearted little boy who helps his grandfather when no one else will listen to the old man, the village eccentric who never tires of recounting his youthful adventures in the city, the worn-out wife who will not send her cow to the show at any price.

Year after year lord Wakefield comes to Vang to fish. One summer he meets beautiful Anne and falls in love. The following spring Anne gives birth to a daughter and leaves the baby and drown herself. The local man of the law takes care of the child and calls her Kristine Valdresdatter.