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."
The curate, seeing the risk they ran of their plan being found out, came to where Master Nicholas was lying, and with one jerk clapped it on again, muttering as he did so some Latin words, which he said were a charm for fixing on beards.
By this means, to Don Quixote's amazement, the squire was cured again, and he asked the curate to tell him this charm, which, he said, since it could heal a wound of this kind, must be good for even more dangerous injuries.
The curate agreed to tell him the secret some other day, and, having mounted the mule, the party rode slowly away towards the inn.