e, Spotty, for we have time
enough to return to our fold." The goat seemed to understand him, for as
her master seated himself, she stretched herself quietly beside him and
looked up in his face to show him she was all attention to what he was
going to say, and then in these words he began his story.

CHAPTER LI.

WHICH DEALS WITH WHAT THE GOATHERD TOLD THOSE WHO WERE CARRYING OFF DON
QUIXOTE

Three leagues from this valley there is a village which, though small, is
one of the richest in all this neighbourhood, and in it there lived a
farmer, a very worthy man, and so much respected that, although to be so
is the natural consequence of being rich, he was even more respected for
his virtue than for the wealth he had acquired. But what made him still
more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such
exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that
everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary gifts
with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was
beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen she
was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad through
all the villages around--but why do I say the villages around, merely,
when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls of
royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from all
sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or some
wonder-working image?

Her father watched over her and she watched over herself; for there are
no locks, or guards, or bolts that can protect a young girl better than
her own modesty. The wealth of the father and the beauty of the daughter
led many neighbours as well as strangers to seek her for a wife; but he,
as one might well be who had the disposal of so rich a jewel, was
perplexed and unable to make up his mind to which of her countless
suitors he should entrust her. I was one among the many who felt a desire
so natural, and, as her father knew who I was, and I was of the same
town, of pure blood, in the bloom of life, and very rich in possessions,
I had great hopes of success. There was another of the same place and
qualifications who also sought her, and this made her father's choice
hang in the balance, for he felt that on either of us his daughter would
be well bestowed; so to escape from this state of perplexity he resolved
to refer the matter to Leandra (for that i