a great help and support
to her in enduring her afflictions with wisdom and resignation; hence the
ignorant and ill-disposed vulgar took occasion to say and think that she
was his mistress; and they lie, I say it once more, and will lie two
hundred times more, all who think and say so."

"I neither say nor think so," said Sancho; "let them look to it; with
their bread let them eat it; they have rendered account to God whether
they misbehaved or not; I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I am not
fond of prying into other men's lives; he who buys and lies feels it in
his purse; moreover, naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither
lose nor gain; but if they did, what is that to me? many think there are
flitches where there are no hooks; but who can put gates to the open
plain? moreover they said of God-"

"God bless me," said Don Quixote, "what a set of absurdities thou art
stringing together! What has what we are talking about got to do with the
proverbs thou art threading one after the other? for God's sake hold thy
tongue, Sancho, and henceforward keep to prodding thy ass and don't
meddle in what does not concern thee; and understand with all thy five
senses that everything I have done, am doing, or shall do, is well
founded on reason and in conformity with the rules of chivalry, for I
understand them better than all the world that profess them."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "is it a good rule of chivalry that we should go
astray through these mountains without path or road, looking for a madman
who when he is found will perhaps take a fancy to finish what he began,
not his story, but your worship's head and my ribs, and end by breaking
them altogether for us?"

"Peace, I say again, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for let me tell thee it
is not so much the desire of finding that madman that leads me into these
regions as that which I have of performing among them an achievement
wherewith I shall win eternal name and fame throughout the known world;
and it shall be such that I shall thereby set the seal on all that can
make a knight-errant perfect and famous."

"And is it very perilous, this achievement?"

"No," replied he of the Rueful Countenance; "though it may be in the dice
that we may throw deuce-ace instead of sixes; but all will depend on thy
diligence."

"On my diligence!" said Sancho.

"Yes," said Don Quixote, "for if thou dost return soon from the place
where I mean to send thee, my penance will b