St.Petersburg, 1830. An arrogant Finnish baron is playing cards with a Russian officer. Needless to say, the Finn wins and the Russian gets extremely annoyed. The situation is not helped by the fact that the baron has been seeing a girl that the Russian officer has also set his eyes on. They decide to have a duel and after the Finn wins fair and square, he has to escape because the untrustworthy Russians are after him.
Katri is hired as a maid in Ruuhiniemi. Over the years, she works hard and even dares to dream of love and being the owner of the farm, but the scheming in the division of the inheritance complicate the future.
A man stays with a fisherman and his adult daughter in coastal Finland, develops feelings for the daughter and begins to uncover a terrible secret haunting the family.