The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
Children's literature
As soon as Sancho had finished drinking, he stuck his heels into his
ass, and the inn gate being thrown wide open he rode out, highly
pleased at having paid for nothing, even at the price of a tossing.
The innkeeper, however, had kept his wallet, but Sancho was so
distracted when he departed that he never missed it.
When Sancho reached his master, he was almost too jaded and faint to
ride his beast. Don Quixote, seeing him in this plight, said to him:
"Now I am certain that yon castle or inn is without doubt enchanted,
for those who made sport with thee so cruelly, what else could they
be but phantoms, and beings of another world? And I am the more sure
of this, because when I was by the wall of the inn yard I was not able
to mount it, or to alight from Rozinante, and therefore I must have
been enchanted. For if I could have moved, I would have avenged thee
in a way to make those scoundrels remember the jest for ever, even
although to do it I should have had to disobey the rules of
knighthood."
"So would I also have avenged myself," said Sancho, "knight or no
knight, but I could not. And yet I believe that those who amused
themselves with me were no phantoms or enchanted beings, but men of
flesh and bones as we are, for one was called Pedro, and another
Tenorio, and the innkeeper called a third Juan. But what I make out of
all this, is that those adventures which we go in search of, will
bring us at last so many misadventures that we shall not know our
right foot from our left. And the best thing for us to do, in my
humble opinion, is to return us again to our village and look after
our own affairs, and not go jumping, as the saying is, 'out of the
frying-pan into the fire.'"
"How little dost thou know of knighthood, friend Sancho," replied Don
Quixote. "Peace, and have patience, for a day will come when thou
shalt see with thine own eyes how fine a thing it is to follow this
calling. What pleasure can equal that of winning a battle or
triumphing over an enemy?"
"I cannot tell," answered Sancho; "but this I know, that since we are
knights-errant, we have never won any battle, unless it was that with
the Biscayan, and even then your worship lost half an ear. And ever
after that time it has been nothing but cudgels and more cudgels,
blows and more blows,--I getting the tossing in the blanket to boot.
And all this happens to me from enchanted people on whom I cannot take
vengeance."
"That grieves me," replied Don Quixote; "but who knows what may
happen? Fortune may bring me a sword like that of Amadis, which did
not only cut like a razor, but there was no armour however strong or
enchanted which could stand before it."
"It will be like my luck," said Sancho, "that when your worship finds
such a sword it will, like the balsam, be of use only to those who are
knights, whilst poor squires will still have to sup sorrow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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