gging him with a belt and following up every blow with scoldings
and commands, repeating, "Your mouth shut and your eyes open!" while the
youth made answer, "I won't do it again, master mine; by God's passion I
won't do it again, and I'll take more care of the flock another time."

Seeing what was going on, Don Quixote said in an angry voice,
"Discourteous knight, it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend
himself; mount your steed and take your lance" (for there was a lance
leaning against the oak to which the mare was tied), "and I will make you
know that you are behaving as a coward." The farmer, seeing before him
this figure in full armour brandishing a lance over his head, gave
himself up for dead, and made answer meekly, "Sir Knight, this youth that
I am chastising is my servant, employed by me to watch a flock of sheep
that I have hard by, and he is so careless that I lose one every day, and
when I punish him for his carelessness and knavery he says I do it out of
niggardliness, to escape paying him the wages I owe him, and before God,
and on my soul, he lies."

"Lies before me, base clown!" said Don Quixote. "By the sun that shines
on us I have a mind to run you through with this lance. Pay him at once
without another word; if not, by the God that rules us I will make an end
of you, and annihilate you on the spot; release him instantly."

The farmer hung his head, and without a word untied his servant, of whom
Don Quixote asked how much his master owed him.

He replied, nine months at seven reals a month. Don Quixote added it up,
found that it came to sixty-three reals, and told the farmer to pay it
down immediately, if he did not want to die for it.

The trembling clown replied that as he lived and by the oath he had sworn
(though he had not sworn any) it was not so much; for there were to be
taken into account and deducted three pairs of shoes he had given him,
and a real for two blood-lettings when he was sick.

"All that is very well," said Don Quixote; "but let the shoes and the
blood-lettings stand as a setoff against the blows you have given him
without any cause; for if he spoiled the leather of the shoes you paid
for, you have damaged that of his body, and if the barber took blood from
him when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was sound; so on that
score he owes you nothing."

"The difficulty is, Sir Knight, that I have no money here; let Andres
come home with me, and I will pa