every hour of the day; when she saw
him wiping the sweat from his brow in the burning afternoons and leaning
wearily at intervals on his rake to rest a while from his labour, then
she was persuaded that this work was not a pastime, but a bitter toil
for daily bread.

Often times she would very much have liked to ask him how this was, but
she was a stranger in these parts and did not understand his language;
at last, however, the priest, perceiving the lady one day, peered at her
through the palings and wished her good-day in the purest Hungarian,
thereby giving her to understand that the language of the gentry was
well known to him.

Henrietta begged the old man to leave his labour and come to her.

"It cannot be, your ladyship; his lordship has forbidden me to appear in
his courts."

"Why?"

"I am always a nuisance."

"How so?"

"Because I am always on some begging errand. At one time the wind
carries off the roof of the church; at another, something is broken in
the belfry. It is a year ago now since the school was burnt down, and
since then the walls have become overgrown with thistles; the
schoolmaster too has gone away, and there is nobody to teach the
children, so that they grow up louts and robbers, to the great hurt and
harm of the gentry."

"But why is not all this put to rights?"

"Because the poor folks are lazy and drunken, and his lordship is
stingy."

Henrietta was astonished at the old man's words.

"Yes, stingy, that's the word," continued the priest. "I do not pick my
words, for I am a priest and used to hunger. And he who is used to
hunger is free from the yoke of servility. I told his lordship that to
his face, and that was why he forbade me the castle."

Henrietta could not continue the conversation, so upset was she at the
idea of Hatszegi's stinginess. What! the man who raked in hundreds of
thousands at a time with the greatest ease, and no doubt scattered them
as recklessly, could shut his door in the face of a poor priest who
begged for the house of God and the education of the people! She hastily
wished the priest good-night and returned to the castle.

The same evening she sought her husband, who had just come home wearied
from the chase, "I have a favour to ask of you," said she. Hatszegi
looked astonished: it was the first favour the wife had ever asked her
husband.

"Command me!" said he. "Whatever you like to ask is as good as granted
already."

"I should like to lear