Which Treats of Don Quixote's Further Adventures
IT was dawn when Don Quixote quitted the inn. He decided to return home to provide himself with money, shirts, and a squire, as the innkeeper had suggested, and so he turned his horse's head toward his village.
He had not gone far, however, when he heard a feeble cry from the depths of a thicket on the roadside, as of some one in pain. He paused to thank Heaven for having favored him with this opportunity of fulfilling the obligation he had undertaken and gathering the fruit of his ambition; for he was certain that he had been called on from above to give aid and protection to some one in dire need. He quickly turned Rocinante in the direction from which the cries seemed to come; and he had gone but a few paces into the wood when he saw a youth, stripped to the waist and tied to a tree, being flogged in a merciless way by a powerful farmer. All the while the boy was crying out in his agony: "I won't do it again, master! I won't do it again! I promise I'll take better care of the sheep hereafter!"
When Don Quixote saw what was going on he became most indignant.
"Discourteous knight," he commanded in angry tones, "it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend himself! Mount your steed and take your lance! I will make you know that you are behaving like a coward!"
The farmer looked up and saw Don Quixote in full armor, brandishing a lance over his head. He gave himself up for dead, then, and answered meekly:
"Sir knight, the youth I am chastising is my servant. I employ him to watch a flock of sheep, and he is so careless that he loses one for me every day. And when I punish him for being careless, he accuses me of being a miser, saying that I do it that I might escape paying him the wages I owe him. That, I swear, is a sinful lie!"
But the farmer's defense only angered Don Quixote all the more. He threatened to run the man through with his lance if he did not release the boy at once and pay him every penny he owed him in wages. Don Quixote then helped the lad to add up how much nine months' wages at seven reals a month might be, and found that it would make sixty-three reals; and the farmer was given his choice between paying his debt and dying upon the spot. The farmer replied, trembling with fear, that the sum was not so great and asked Don Quixote to take into account and deduct three pairs of shoes he had given the boy and a real for two blood-lettings when he was sick. But Don Quixote would not listen to this at all. He declared that the shoes and the blood-lettings had already been paid for by the blows the farmer had given the boy without cause, for, said he, "If he spoiled the leather of the shoes you paid for, you have damaged that of his body; and if the barber took blood from him when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was sound; so on that score he owes you nothing."
When the farmer had heard his final judgment pronounced, he commenced to wail that he had no money about him, and pleaded with Don Quixote to let Andres, the lad, come home with him, when he would pay him real by real. Upon hearing this Andres turned to our knight errant and warned him that once he had departed his master would flay him like a Saint Bartholomew; but Don Quixote reassured him, saying now that his master had sworn to him by the knighthood that he, Don Quixote, had conferred upon him, justice would be done, and he himself would guarantee the payment.
The youth had his doubts, however, and he dared to correct Don Quixote.
"Consider what you say, Señor," he said. "This master of mine is not a knight; he is simply Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar."
To this Don Quixote replied that it mattered little; and the farmer again swore by all the knighthoods in the world to pay the lad as he had promised if he only came home.
"See that you do as you have sworn," said Don Quixote, "for if you do not, by the same oath I swear to come back and hunt you out and punish you; and I shall find you though you should lie closer than a lizard! If you desire to know who it is lays this command upon you, that you may be more firmly bound to obey it, know that I am the valorous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injustices. And so, God be with you! But keep in mind what you have promised and sworn on pain of those penalties that have been already declared to you!"
With these words he gave his steed the spur and rode away in a triumphant gallop, and was soon out of sight and reach. Now, when the farmer had convinced himself that the undoer of wrongs and injustices had entirely disappeared, he decided to give payment to the lad, Andres, then and there, without waiting till he came home; and so he tied him again to the tree and beat him until he was nearly dead.
"Your valiant knight has made me realize an affection for you hitherto unknown to me. I shall give you added payment for that. Now go and look for him!" he remarked, as he gave him a last blow and untied him. And while the poor boy went off weeping, the lusty farmer stood there and laughed.
Thus it was that our noble knight righted that wrong. Don Quixote, however, was thoroughly satisfied with what he had done. He thought himself a most heroic figure and felt that he had made a most auspicious beginning in his knighthood. And as he was taking the road toward his village, utterly content with his own behavior, he said to himself: "Well mayest thou this day call thyself fortunate above all on earth, O Dulcinea del Toboso, fairest of the fair! since it has fallen to thy lot to hold subject and submissive to thy will and pleasure a knight so renowned as Don Quixote of La Mancha, who, as all the world knows, yesterday received the order of knighthood, and hath to-day righted the greatest wrong and grievance that ever injustice conceived and cruelty perpetrated: who hath to-day plucked the rod from the hand of yonder ruthless oppressor so wantonly lashing that tender child."
As he was meditating and speaking in this fashion, he suddenly found himself at four crossroads. Of course, he had to emulate other knights who had gone before him, and follow tradition; so he paused in the manner that all knights do in books, and pondered, and, after much deep concern and consideration, finally decided to leave it to the instinct of his horse. The noble animal, realizing that his master had relinquished his will in his favor, made straight for his own stable, of course.
After he had ridden a few miles, Don Quixote encountered six merchants from Toledo, who were on their way to Murcia to buy silk. They were accompanied by four mounted servants, and three who were on foot. Scarcely had he perceived them when his romantic imagination prompted him to believe that a fresh adventure was intended for him, and he began to prepare for it with great gestures. He fixed himself majestically and safely in the saddle, made ready with his lance, and planted himself firmly in the middle of the road. Here he awaited the arrival of the traders, who appeared to him to be real knights like himself; and as they came close to him, he halted them with a broad sweep of his lance, exclaiming boldly:
"All the world stand, unless all the world confess that in all the world there is no maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso!"
The thirteen men could not help but stand still at the sound of such words; nor did they hesitate about thinking that the speaker of them might be lacking in some of his wits. One of the travelers, however, either was curious or had a failing for making fun of people, for he asked Don Quixote to produce the lady before asking him to pay her his respects. Perhaps he was skeptical of his country's harboring such a rare beauty unbeknown to him.
But Don Quixote was not to be fooled. "If I were to show her to you," he replied, "what merit would you have in confessing a truth so manifest? You must believe without seeing her; otherwise you have to do with me in battle. Come on, you rabble! I rely on the justice of the cause I maintain!"
The merchant with a sense of humor tried to plead for consideration. He suggested that a portrait of the fair lady might suffice to bring about a conversion to his conception of her beauty. But Don Quixote was determined that they were intolerant blasphemers who simply had to be thrashed. So he suddenly charged with such vehemence and fury that, if luck had not interfered and made his gentle steed stumble, the trader might have been killed. As Rocinante went down, our gallant hero went over his head, and after he had struck the ground he rolled for some distance. But when he tried to rise he could not: he was so weighted down with armor, helmet, spurs, buckler and lance. To make matters worse, one of the servants, having broken his lance in two, proceeded to batter him with one of the pieces until it seemed as if Don Quixote would be able to stand no more. Finally the man grew tired and went to catch up with his party, which had continued its way. But Don Quixote still lay on the ground, unable to get up.