They halted at the acacias, and there agreed to await the doctor who was to come jogging along from the Mata puszta, in his one-horse trap. Meanwhile the painter made notes in his sketch-book, falling from ecstasy to ecstasy. "What subjects! What motives!" In vain his companions urged him to draw a fine solitary acacia, rather than a group of nasty old thistles! At last appeared the doctor and his gig, coming up from a slanting direction, but he did not stop, only shouted "Good morning" from the box, and then, "Hurry, hurry! before the daylight comes!" So after a long enough drive they reached "the great herd." This is the pride of the Hortobágy puszta—one thousand five hundred cattle all in one mass. Now all lay silent, but whether sleeping or not, who could tell? No one has ever seen cattle with closed eyes and heads resting on the ground, and to them Hamlet's soliloquy, "To sleep, perchance to dream," in no wise applies.
"What a picture!" cried the painter, enchanted. "A forest of uplifted horns, and there in the middle the old bull himself with his sooty head and his wrinkled neck. The jet black litter surrounded by green pasture, the grey mist in the background, and, far away, the light of a shepherd's fire! This must be perpetuated!"
Thereupon he sprang from the carriage, saying, "Please follow the others. I see the shelter, and will meet you there." So, taking his paint-box and camp-stool, and laying his sketch-book on his knees, he began rapidly jotting down the scene, while the carriage with the farmer drove on.
All at once, the two watch dogs of the herd, observing this strange figure on the puszta, rushed towards him, barking loudly. It was, however, not the painter's way to be frightened. The dogs, moreover, with their white coats and black noses, fell into the scheme of colour. Nor did they attack the man, peacefully squatting there, but when quite close to him, stood still. "What could he be?" Sitting down, they poked out their heads inquisitively at the sketch-book. "What was this?" The painter pursued the joke, for he daubed the cheek of the one with green, and the other with pink; and these attentions they seemed to find flattering, but when they by-and-by saw each other's pink or green face, they fancied it was that of a strange dog, and took to fighting.
Luckily the "taligás," or wheel-barrow boy, came up at that moment. The taligás is the youngest boy on the place, and his duty is to follow the cattle with his wheel-barrow, and scrape up the "poor man's peat" which they leave on the meadow. This serves as fuel on the puszta, and its smoke is alike grateful to the nose of man and beast.
The taligás rushed his barrow between the fighting dogs, separated and pursued them, shouting, "Get away there!" For the puszta watch-dog does not fear the stick, but of the wheel-barrow he is in terror.
The taligás was a very smart little lad, in his blue shirt and linen breeches worked with scarlet. He delivered the message entrusted to him by the gentlemen, very clearly. It was "that the painter should join them at the shelter, where there was much to sketch." But the striking picture of the herd was not yet completed.
"Can you run me along in your barrow?" asked the painter, "for this silver piece?"
"Oh, sir!" said the lad, "I've wheeled a much heavier calf than you! Please step in, sir."
So utilising this clever idea, the painter gained both his ends. He got to the "karám," seated in the barrow, and managed to finish his characteristic sketch by the way.