“It may be true that he went mounted as your
worship says,” answered Sancho, “but there
is a great difference between going mounted and going
slung like a sack of manure.”
To which Don Quixote replied, “Wounds received
in battle confer honour instead of taking it away;
and so, friend Panza, say no more, but, as I told
thee before, get up as well as thou canst and put me
on top of thy beast in whatever fashion pleases thee
best, and let us go hence ere night come on and surprise
us in these wilds.”
“And yet I have heard your worship say,”
observed Panza, “that it is very meet for knights-errant
to sleep in wastes and deserts, and that they esteem
it very good fortune.”
“That is,” said Don Quixote, “when
they cannot help it, or when they are in love; and
so true is this that there have been knights who have
remained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade
and all the inclemencies of heaven, without their
ladies knowing anything of it; and one of these was
Amadis, when, under the name of Beltenebros, he took
up his abode on the Pena Pobre for—I know
not if it was eight years or eight months, for I am
not very sure of the reckoning; at any rate he stayed
there doing penance for I know not what pique the Princess
Oriana had against him; but no more of this now, Sancho,
and make haste before a mishap like Rocinante’s
befalls the ass.”
“The very devil would be in it in that case,”
said Sancho; and letting off thirty “ohs,”
and sixty sighs, and a hundred and twenty maledictions
and execrations on whomsoever it was that had brought
him there, he raised himself, stopping half-way bent
like a Turkish bow without power to bring himself
upright, but with all his pains he saddled his ass,
who too had gone astray somewhat, yielding to the
excessive licence of the day; he next raised up Rocinante,
and as for him, had he possessed a tongue to complain
with, most assuredly neither Sancho nor his master
would have been behind him.
To be brief, Sancho fixed Don Quixote on the ass and
secured Rocinante with a leading rein, and taking
the ass by the halter, he proceeded more or less in
the direction in which it seemed to him the high road
might be; and, as chance was conducting their affairs
for them from good to better, he had not gone a short
league when the road came in sight, and on it he perceived
an inn, which to his annoyance and to the delight of
Don Quixote must needs be a castle. Sancho insisted
that it was an inn, and his master that it was not
one, but a castle, and the dispute lasted so long
that before the point was settled they had time to
reach it, and into it Sancho entered with all his
team without any further controversy.
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO
BE A CASTLE
