it is night at noonday; and for this
simplicity I love him as the core of my heart, and I can't bring myself
to leave him, let him do ever such foolish things."

"For all that, brother and senor," said he of the Grove, "if the blind
lead the blind, both are in danger of falling into the pit. It is better
for us to beat a quiet retreat and get back to our own quarters; for
those who seek adventures don't always find good ones."

Sancho kept spitting from time to time, and his spittle seemed somewhat
ropy and dry, observing which the compassionate squire of the Grove said,
"It seems to me that with all this talk of ours our tongues are sticking
to the roofs of our mouths; but I have a pretty good loosener hanging
from the saddle-bow of my horse," and getting up he came back the next
minute with a large bota of wine and a pasty half a yard across; and this
is no exaggeration, for it was made of a house rabbit so big that Sancho,
as he handled it, took it to be made of a goat, not to say a kid, and
looking at it he said, "And do you carry this with you, senor?"

"Why, what are you thinking about?" said the other; "do you take me for
some paltry squire? I carry a better larder on my horse's croup than a
general takes with him when he goes on a march."

Sancho ate without requiring to be pressed, and in the dark bolted
mouthfuls like the knots on a tether, and said he, "You are a proper
trusty squire, one of the right sort, sumptuous and grand, as this
banquet shows, which, if it has not come here by magic art, at any rate
has the look of it; not like me, unlucky beggar, that have nothing more
in my alforjas than a scrap of cheese, so hard that one might brain a
giant with it, and, to keep it company, a few dozen carobs and as many
more filberts and walnuts; thanks to the austerity of my master, and the
idea he has and the rule he follows, that knights-errant must not live or
sustain themselves on anything except dried fruits and the herbs of the
field."

"By my faith, brother," said he of the Grove, "my stomach is not made for
thistles, or wild pears, or roots of the woods; let our masters do as
they like, with their chivalry notions and laws, and eat what those
enjoin; I carry my prog-basket and this bota hanging to the saddle-bow,
whatever they may say; and it is such an object of worship with me, and I
love it so, that there is hardly a moment but I am kissing and embracing
it over and over again;" and so saying he t