forward without being asked, I will, if it will
not tire you, gentlemen, and you will give me your attention for a
little, tell you a true story which will confirm this gentleman's word
(and he pointed to the curate) as well as my own."

To this Don Quixote replied, "Seeing that this affair has a certain
colour of chivalry about it, I for my part, brother, will hear you most
gladly, and so will all these gentlemen, from the high intelligence they
possess and their love of curious novelties that interest, charm, and
entertain the mind, as I feel quite sure your story will do. So begin,
friend, for we are all prepared to listen."

"I draw my stakes," said Sancho, "and will retreat with this pasty to the
brook there, where I mean to victual myself for three days; for I have
heard my lord, Don Quixote, say that a knight-errant's squire should eat
until he can hold no more, whenever he has the chance, because it often
happens them to get by accident into a wood so thick that they cannot
find a way out of it for six days; and if the man is not well filled or
his alforjas well stored, there he may stay, as very often he does,
turned into a dried mummy."

"Thou art in the right of it, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "go where thou
wilt and eat all thou canst, for I have had enough, and only want to give
my mind its refreshment, as I shall by listening to this good fellow's
story."

"It is what we shall all do," said the canon; and then begged the
goatherd to begin the promised tale.

The goatherd gave the goat which he held by the horns a couple of slaps
on the back, saying, "Lie down here beside me, 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.

===18

DON QUIXOTE

by Miguel de Cervantes

Translated by John Ormsby

Volume I.

Part 18.

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, al