Abonyi was in a very bad humour that day, for there had been a violent
dispute with the harvesters, who cut and threshed on shares, and who
had claimed more grain for their portion than seemed just to the owner
of the estate. It did not improve his mood to find that his favourite
saddle-horse had its right hind fetlock badly swollen and could not be
used for a week. So he entered the coach-house, half of which,
separated by a board-partition, served for a hay-loft.
The first thing on which his eye fell here was a man lying stretched
comfortably on the straw, snoring. He recognized in the sluggard
"hideous Pista," who had been summoned to the castle that morning to
put new spokes into some broken carriage-wheels. The work he had
commenced, a chaos of naves, spokes, fellies, tires, and a variety of
tools, lay in a heap beside him, but he was sleeping the sleep of the
just.
It needed nothing more to fan Abonyi's secret rage into a blaze of
fury, and he shouted fiercely:
"Devil take you, you idler, will you get off of my hay?"
Pista, evidently not fully roused by the call, merely grunted a little
in his dream and turned over to continue his nap.
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