owards his village in perfect self-content, saying in a low
voice:--"Well mayest them this day call thyself fortunate above all on
earth, O Dulcinea del Toboso, fairest of the fair! since it has fallen
to thy lot to hold subject and submissive to thy full will and
pleasure a knight so renowned as is and will be Don Quixote of La
Mancha, who as all the world knows, yesterday received the order of
knighthood, and hath to-day righted the greatest wrong and grievance
that ever injustice conceived and cruelty perpetrated; who hath to-day
plucked the rod from the hand of yonder ruthless oppressor so wantonly
lashing that tender child."

He now came to a road branching in four directions, and immediately he
was reminded of those cross-roads where knights-errant used to stop to
consider which road they should take. In imitation of them he halted
for a while, and after having deeply considered it, he gave Rosinante
his head, submitting his own will to that of his hack, who followed
out his first intention, which was to make straight for his own
stable. After he had gone about two miles Don Quixote perceived a
large party of people, who as afterwards appeared were some Toledo
traders, on their way to buy silk at Murcia. There were six of them
coming along under their sun-shades, with four servants mounted, and
three muleteers on foot. Scarcely had Don Quixote descried them when
the fancy possessed him that this must be some new adventure; and to
help him to imitate as far as he could those passages he had read of
in his books, here seemed to come one made on purpose, which he
resolved to attempt. So with a lofty bearing and determination he
fixed himself firmly in his stirrups, got his lance ready, brought his
buckler before his breast, and planting himself in the middle of the
road, stood waiting the approach of these knights-errant, for such he
now considered and held them to be; and when they had come near enough
to see and hear, he exclaimed with a haughty gesture:--"All the world
stand, unless all the world confess that in all the world there is no
maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del
Toboso."

The traders halted at the sound of this language and the sight of the
strange figure that uttered it, and from both figure and language at
once guessed the craze of their owner; they wished however to learn
quietly what was the object of this confession that was demanded of
them, and one of them, wh