Baroness Orczy

“ Perhaps it is a fairy sound, and that herd of wild horses, thundering past, their manes shaking, their tails lashing, are some fairy beasts belonging to the ghouls who dwell in Fata Morgana’s distant minarets. Yet the sound is real enough, wildly the horses gallop past, followed by the csikós (herdsman) on his bare-backed mare, his white lawn shirt flying out like wings, as he passes, and cracking his lasso, as he drives his herd before him. ”

“ Do you think, we are so many children, afraid of András, as of a schoolmaster? You shall kiss me, for that piece of impudence, Lotti, ay! you shall kiss me three times, which will make your lord and master so jealous that he will break his new stick across your plump shoulders. And then, who will be frightened? Eh, my pretty one?”
And, with true Hungarian light-heartedness, the swarthy giant, forgetting the devil and his works, the lord of Bideskút and his steam-mills, proceeded, with a merry laugh, to chase the pretty woman round the table ”

“ The air trembles with the intense heat, and as the eye tries to define what lies beyond that mysterious vastness, lo! there suddenly rises on the distant horizon a vision of towers, minarets and steeples, white and cool-looking, mirrored in some fairy pond that must lie somewhere. ”

“ Far, very far away, a windmill stretches out its long wings, like a gigantic bird of prey, and right across the plain, the high road, riddled with ruts, wanders northwards, towards Kecskemét. And that is all! Nothing more. Only sky and earth, and vastness—immeasurable vastness—all one’s own: to grasp, to understand, to love! ”

“ Nothing, surely to disturb the happy quietude of these simple peasant minds, and yet, superstitious terror seemed to lurk in every corner, and the eyes of none dared wander beyond the village, towards the horizon, where, on ahead, a large building with its tall chimney could still be seen, dimly outlined in the west.
“I am for asking Pater Ambrosius to say a special Mass, to keep the devil away,” suggested a young herdsman, at last. ”

“ You know András won’t allow you to say disrespectful things about my lord, or to brew mischief against him, and so you wait, till you know he is well out of sight, and hatch all sorts of wickedness behind his back. But, I tell you, he is not so far as you all think. He will catch you at your tricks, never fear, and then—you know he has a devil of a temper, all his own!”
“And I have a devil of a temper too, my pretty Lotti,” retorted the giant, laughing, “and you are very venturesome to have roused the anger of Sándor the smith. ”

“ Now, we are told that on the day after to-morrow, all the devils in hell will be at work in that mill of Lucifer, that, on the day after to-morrow, the beautiful corn of Bideskút will be ground into flour, through no other help but that of a huge fire and a monstrous chimney, and some contrivance made of iron, which I could not forge on my anvil, though I have done some pretty tough smith’s work in my day: and do you mean to tell me, mates, that we are going to stand by, and look on, while the bread is being taken out of our mouths, and our souls delivered over to the enemy of man? ”