The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of Don Quixote, Vol. I., Part 2.
by Miguel de Cervantes

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Title: The History of Don Quixote, Vol. I., Part 2.

Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Release Date: July 17, 2004 [EBook #5904]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON QUIXOTE, PART 2. ***

Produced by David Widger

DON QUIXOTE

by Miguel de Cervantes

Translated by John Ormsby

Volume I.

Part 2.

CHAPTER IV.

OF WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR KNIGHT WHEN HE LEFT THE INN

Day was dawning when Don Quixote quitted the inn, so happy, so gay, so
exhilarated at finding himself now dubbed a knight, that his joy was like
to burst his horse-girths. However, recalling the advice of his host as
to the requisites he ought to carry with him, especially that referring
to money and shirts, he determined to go home and provide himself with
all, and also with a squire, for he reckoned upon securing a
farm-labourer, a neighbour of his, a poor man with a family, but very
well qualified for the office of squire to a knight. With this object he
turned his horse's head towards his village, and Rocinante, thus reminded
of his old quarters, stepped out so briskly that he hardly seemed to
tread the earth.

He had not gone far, when out of a thicket on his right there seemed to
come feeble cries as of some one in distress, and the instant he heard
them he exclaimed, "Thanks be to heaven for the favour it accords me,
that it so soon offers me an opportunity of fulfilling the obligation I
have undertaken, and gathering the fruit of my ambition. These cries, no
doubt, come from some man or woman in want of help, and needing my aid
and protection;" and wheeling, he turned Rocinante in the direction
whence the cries seemed to proceed. He had gone but a few paces into the
wood, when he saw a mare tied to an oak, and tied to another, and
stripped from the waist upwards, a youth of about fifteen years of age,
from whom the cries came. Nor were they without cause, for a lusty farmer
was flo