In a Lithuanian village under Tsarist rule, a farmer sends Jonis, an orphaned boy he has taken in, to work as a farmhand for the wealthy Banys. After biting his future master’s hand, the boy earns the nickname “devil’s seed.” Yet Jonis proves to be an excellent worker. This does not stop the cruel Banys, who values only his horses, from sending him off as a conscript. Wandering from one war front to another, Jonis deliberately injures his leg so that he can return home – to Banys’s farmstead, where his infertile wife Morta awaits him, along with Teresė, a young farmhand who secretly pines for him. When Kaiser’s soldiers search for hidden livestock, Jonis conceals Banys’s horses, earning his master’s gratitude while also arousing his suspicions. Soon Banys dies, and shortly afterwards, amid village gossip, Jonis marries the widowed Morta. She longs for a child, so Jonis, having made an arrangement with the midwife Juzė, secretly gives her Teresė’s newborn daughter, pretending that the child was born during Morta’s supposed nervous pregnancy. When the girl grows older, her real mother comes looking for her. After Morta learns the truth, she is left paralyzed. German soldiers are still ravaging the countryside, and they torture Jonis, demanding that he reveal where he has hidden the horses. He is rescued by Lithuanian uhlans, summoned by his neighbour Katilius. But when Katilius’s farmstead burns down after Lithuania gains independence, Jonis, by then the wealthiest man in the district, imposes harsh conditions when granting him a loan. Morta has long since died, and the aged Teresė no longer recognizes the grey-haired Jonis. All that remains are his meaningless riches, memories of his youth, the image of a horse with a white star on its forehead, and loneliness.
