hip's hands, and you hold her in your arms
and cherish her; what bad sign is that, or what ill omen is there to be
found here?"

The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare, and
Sancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He was answered by
the one who had said, "Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou
livest," that he had taken a cage full of crickets from the other boy,
and did not mean to give it back to him as long as he lived. Sancho took
out four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy for the cage,
which he placed in Don Quixote's hands, saying, "There, senor! there are
the omens broken and destroyed, and they have no more to do with our
affairs, to my thinking, fool as I am, than with last year's clouds; and
if I remember rightly I have heard the curate of our village say that it
does not become Christians or sensible people to give any heed to these
silly things; and even you yourself said the same to me some time ago,
telling me that all Christians who minded omens were fools; but there's
no need of making words about it; let us push on and go into our
village."

The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixote gave
them. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance of the town
they came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco busy with
their breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by way
of a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, the
buckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at the
duke's castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixed
the mitre on Dapple's head, the oddest transformation and decoration that
ever ass in the world underwent. They were at once recognised by both the
curate and the bachelor, who came towards them with open arms. Don
Quixote dismounted and received them with a close embrace; and the boys,
who are lynxes that nothing escapes, spied out the ass's mitre and came
running to see it, calling out to one another, "Come here, boys, and see
Sancho Panza's ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote's beast
leaner than ever."

So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompanied by the
curate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into the town, and
proceeded to Don Quixote's house, at the door of which they found his
housekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival had already reached.
It had been brought