The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 4: Heroes and heroines of chivalry
Children's literature
Only Sancho, as has been said, was unhappy and sorrowful. And thus he
went with a melancholy face to his master, who was then just awaking,
and said: "Your worship, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, may
well sleep on as long as you please, without troubling yourself to
kill any giant, or restore to the princess her kingdom, for all that
is done and finished already."
"That I well believe," replied Don Quixote, "for I have had the most
monstrous and terrible battle with that giant that ever I had all the
days of my life; and yet with one back stroke, swish, I tumbled his
head to the ground, and his blood gushed forth, so that streams of it
ran along the earth as if it had been water."
"As if it had been red wine, your worship might have said," replied
Sancho, "for I would have you know, if you do not know already, that
the dead giant is no other than a ruined wine-bag, and the blood
six-and-twenty gallons of red wine."
"What sayest thou, madman?" cried Don Quixote. "Art thou in thy right
wits?"
"Get up, sir," said Sancho, "and you shall see yourself the fine piece
of work you have done, and what we have to pay. You shall behold the
queen turned into a private lady, called Dorothea, with many other
things that may well astonish you."
"I should marvel at nothing," replied Don Quixote, "for if thou
rememberest right, I told thee, the other time that we were here, how
all that happened here was done by enchantment, and it would be no
wonder if it were the same now."
"I should believe it all," replied Sancho, "if my tossing in the
blanket had been a thing of that sort. Only it was not so, but very
real and certain. And I saw the innkeeper, who is here to this day,
hold one end of the blanket and toss me up to the sky with very good
grace and strength, and as much mirth as muscle. And where it comes to
knowing persons, I hold, though I may be a simpleton and a sinner,
that there is no enchantment, but only bruising and bad luck."
"Well," cried Don Quixote, "time will show; but give me my clothes,
for I would see these wonders that thou speakest of for myself."
Sancho gave him his clothes, and, whilst he was making him ready, the
curate told Don Fernando and the rest, of Don Quixote's mad pranks,
and the plan he had used to get him away from the Brown Mountains,
where he imagined he was exiled through the disdain of his lady.
The curate told them further, that since the good fortune of the Lady
Dorothea prevented them carrying out their scheme, they must invent
some other way of taking him home to his village.
Cardenio offered to continue the adventure, and let Luanda take
Dorothea's part.
"No," cried Don Fernando. "It shall not be so, for I will have
Dorothea herself carry out her plan, and if the good knight's home is
not far from here, I shall be very glad to help in his cure."
"It is not more than two days' journey," said the curate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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