The story, transferred to the reform era, Mattie, who has his geese taken away by Döbrögi’s men and himself beaten up brutally, is not alone in his fight to teach the landlord (i. e. the whole aristocracy and the class of landowners), helped by Gergely, a seneschal, and Piros, his love. He is also helped by a group of strolling players and a professor in Debrecen. When he is on the point of re-paying Döbrögi for the third time, he has all the people of Hungary, as it were, by his side.