Tailor Vipperup in Ebberöd has problems with liquidity: customers are bad at paying for his services while his own creditors are all the more intrusive. His consolation in life consists of his daughter Ellen and the faithful companion Tadeus. However, the repulsive trader Klemmensen, the town's richest man and most ruthless usurer, casts more and more lustful glances at Ellen.
When his ancestors seem to appear in the clouds during a storm of biblical proportions, young Ingmar decides to give up his career as the village teacher and to reclaim the land and farm of his fathers. The same stormy night, the charismatic preacher Helgum arrives in the village to spread the word about the promises of the Holy Land, which turns parents and children, men and wives, brothers and sisters, against one another. Ingmar is torn between his love for the headmaster’s daughter Gertrud who is under the preacher’s spell, and the prospects of marrying the judge’s daughter Barbro in order to keep the farm.
The young adventurer Signature Hjelm meets one day a runaway carriage, and succeeds by a resourceful and daring intervention to avert an accident. The rig belongs to Gustav III's favorite, Baron Armfelt, and as a reward for his feat will Ture service of the king's guard. Conspirators trying maple certainly entice him over to the king's enemies, but Ture reports Gustaf receiving a grim and determined expression on his face: "Spies even here!" His confidence Signature increases.