they had known it they would
have been on their guard to protect themselves. The goatherd replied that
he had said so, and that if he had not heard him, that was no fault of
his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd rejoined, and the altercation
ended in their seizing each other by the beard, and exchanging such
fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made peace between them, they
would have knocked one another to pieces.

"Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance," said Sancho,
grappling with the goatherd, "for of this fellow, who is a clown like
myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the
affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an honest
man."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "but I know that he is not to blame for
what has happened."

With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be
possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the
end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before, that
there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was; but that if he
wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to fall in
with him either in or out of his senses.

CHAPTER XXV.

WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF
LA MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF
BELTENEBROS

Don Quixote took leave of the goatherd, and once more mounting Rocinante
bade Sancho follow him, which he having no ass, did very discontentedly.
They proceeded slowly, making their way into the most rugged part of the
mountain, Sancho all the while dying to have a talk with his master, and
longing for him to begin, so that there should be no breach of the
injunction laid upon him; but unable to keep silence so long he said to
him:

"Senor Don Quixote, give me your worship's blessing and dismissal, for
I'd like to go home at once to my wife and children with whom I can at
any rate talk and converse as much as I like; for to want me to go
through these solitudes day and night and not speak to you when I have a
mind is burying me alive. If luck would have it that animals spoke as
they did in the days of Guisopete, it would not be so bad, because I
could talk to Rocinante about whatever came into my head, and so put up
with my ill-fortune; but it is a hard case, and not to be borne with
patience, to go seeking adventures all one's life and get nothing but