"Many happy years may your holiness live," quoth Sancho, "for the good opinion you have of me, little as I deserve it. But the tale I would tell is this—
"A certain gentleman of our town, very rich and of a good family,—for he was descended from the Alamos of Medina del Campo, and married Donna Mencia de Quinnones, who was daughter to Don Alonzo de Maranon, knight of the order of St. James, the same that was drowned in the Herradura, about whom that quarrel happened in our town, in which it was said my master Don Quixote had a hand, and Tommy the mad-cap, son of Balvastro the blacksmith, was hurt. Pray, good master of mine, is not all this true? Speak, I beseech you, that their worships may not take me for some lying prater."
"As yet," said the ecclesiastic, "I take you rather for a prater than for a liar; but I know not what I shall next take you for."
"Thou hast produced so many witnesses and so many proofs," said Don Quixote, "that I cannot but say thou mayst probably be speaking truth; but, for Heaven's sake, shorten thy story, or it will last these two days."
"He shall shorten nothing," quoth the duchess; "and to please me, he shall tell it his own way, although he were not to finish these six days; and, should it last so long, they would be to me days of delight."
"I must tell you, then," proceeded Sancho, "that this same gentleman—whom I know as well as I do my right hand from my left, for it is not a bow-shot from my house to his—invited a husbandman to dine with him,—a poor man, but mainly honest."
"On, friend," said the chaplain, "for, at the rate you proceed, your tale will not reach its end till you reach the other world."
"I shall stop," replied Sancho, "before I get half-way thither, if it please Heaven! This same farmer coming to the house of the gentleman his inviter—God rest his soul, for he is dead and gone; and, moreover, died like an angel, as it is said,—for I was not by myself, being at that time gone a reaping to Tembleque."
"Prithee, son," said the ecclesiastic, "come back quickly from Tembleque, and stay not to bury the gentleman, unless you are determined upon more burials. Pray make an end of your tale."
"The business, then," quoth Sancho, "was this, that, they being ready to sit down to table,—methinks I see them plainer than ever."