Fear now left them, and as they ran they called aloud, in the glad assurance of help near at hand, "Manasseh! Manasseh!"-- until they reached him and threw themselves into his arms.
Meanwhile the strange man, looking over his shoulder and seeing Aaron descending upon him with bold leaps and bounds, did not pause long to consider, but dropped his scythe and ran for his life, down the steep side of the gorge, over rubble-stones and slippery boulders.
"What are you so frightened at ?" asked Manasseh, taking the matter lightly and kissing back the roses into the ladies' pale cheeks.
Panting and gasping for breath, they could hardly stammer out the cause of their alarm, but managed to explain that a "terrible man" had suddenly come upon them and chased them.

Yet neither Blanka nor Anna went on to say of whom this strange figure had reminded her.
"You little geese!" cried Manasseh, laughing, "it was only a hay-thief.
Grass grows on Hidas Peak, and ever since the days of King Matthias the Szeklers on the Aranyos have quarrelled with their neighbours over the cutting of it.

The man who is on hand first with his scythe carries it off.

So that bugaboo of yours was merely a harmless peasant in quest of fodder for his cow, and he took fright at sight of us and ran away.
Look there, will you, he has dropped his scythe in his eagerness to escape." The two young women, still clinging to Manasseh, went with him to examine the Wallachian's scythe.
"A tool of our own make!" he cried, lifting it up and inspecting it.

"It has our trade-mark.