For by my troth, sir, the corn is now too old to make pipes of." To which the housekeeper added, "And will your worship be able to endure the summer noondays, and the winter's night frosts, and the howlings of the wolves? No, for certain, for this is the business and duty of strong men, cut out and bred for such work almost from their swaddling bands and long clothes. Ill for ill, it is even better to be a knight-errant than a shepherd. Look ye, sir, take my advice, which is not given on a full meal of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fifty years over my head. Stay at home, look after your property, go often to confession, do good to the poor; and on my soul be it if ill comes of it."--"Peace, daughters," answered Don Quixote to them; "I know well what it behooves me to do. Help me to bed, for it seems to me I am not very well; and be assured that whether I now be a knight-errant or an errant-shepherd, I shall never fail to provide whatever you shall need, as you shall see indeed." And the good women took him to bed, brought him something to eat, and tended him with all possible care. As human things are not eternal, always tending downwards from their beginnings till they reach their final end, especially the lives of men, and as Don Quixote held no privilege from heaven to stay the course of his, so his end and finish arrived when he least expected it. For whether it was from the melancholy that his defeat caused, or whether it was by the disposition of heaven that so ordered it, a fever took possession of him that confined him to his bed for six days. All that time his friends the curate, the bachelor, and the barber, came often to see him, and his good squire Sancho Panza never stirred from his bedside.