The distressed damsel strove with much ado to kiss his hand, but Don Quixote, who was a most courteous Knight, would not permit it, and, making her arise, treated her with the greatest respect.
He now commanded Sancho to saddle Rozinante and help him to arm himself, and this done the Knight was ready to depart. The Barber, who had been kneeling all the while, had great difficulty to stop laughing aloud at all this, and his beard was in danger of falling off. He was glad to get up and help his Lady to mount the mule, and when Don Quixote was mounted, and the Barber himself had got upon his beast, they were ready to start. As for Sancho, who trudged along on foot, he could not help grieving for the loss of his Dapple; but he bore it all with patience, for now he saw his Master on the way to marry a Princess, and so become at least King of Micomicon, though it grieved him to think that that country was peopled by blackamoors, and that when he became a ruler his vassals would all be black.
While this was going on, the Curate and Cardenio had not been idle. For the Curate was a cunning plotter, and had hit on a bright idea. He took from his pocket a pair of scissors, and cut off Cardenio's rugged beard and trimmed his hair very cleverly. And when he had thrown his riding-cloak over Cardenio's shoulders, he was so unlike what he was before, that he would not have known himself in a looking-glass. This finished, they went out to meet Don Quixote and the others.
When they came towards them, the Curate looked earnestly at the Knight for some time, and then ran towards him with open arms, saying: 'In a good hour is this meeting with my worthy countryman, the mirror of Knighthood, Don Quixote of the Mancha, the Champion of the distressed.'
Don Quixote did not at first know him, but when he remembered the Curate he wanted to alight, saying: 'It is not seemly, reverend Sir, that I should ride whilst you travel on foot.'
But the Curate would not allow him to dismount and give him his horse, but suggested that he might ride behind the lady's Squire on his mule.
'I did not think of that, good Master Curate,' said Don Quixote; 'but I know my Lady the Princess will for my sake order her Squire to lend you the use of his saddle.'
'That I will,' said the Princess; 'and I know my Squire is the last man to grudge a share of his beast to this reverend Father.'
'That is most certain,' said the Barber, and got off his steed at once.
The Curate now mounted, but the misfortune was that when the Barber tried to get up behind, the mule, which was a hired one, lifted up her legs and kicked out with such fury that she knocked Mr. Nicholas to the ground, and, as he rolled over, his beard fell off and lay upon the earth. Don Quixote, seeing that huge mass of beard torn from the jaw without blood, and lying at a distance from the Squire's face, said: 'This, I vow, is one of the greatest miracles I ever saw in my life. The beard is taken off as clean by the heel of the mule as if it had been done by the hand of a barber.'