A new assistant priest arrives at a parish in western Jutland. Here, he falls in love with the daughter of a powerful merchant's wife and local politician. She hastily marries her daughter off to the commission agent in the business, and to the strains of the wedding march, the priest swears revenge on the mother. He becomes the parish priest himself and outmanoeuvres her in the following years, both commercially and politically. The political disputes concern the construction of a dike against the North Sea.