an archbishop. He, however,
would not be anything but an emperor; but I was trembling all the time
lest he should take a fancy to go into the Church, not finding myself fit
to hold office in it; for I may tell you, though I seem a man, I am no
better than a beast for the Church."

"Well, then, you are wrong there," said he of the Grove; "for those
island governments are not all satisfactory; some are awkward, some are
poor, some are dull, and, in short, the highest and choicest brings with
it a heavy burden of cares and troubles which the unhappy wight to whose
lot it has fallen bears upon his shoulders. Far better would it be for us
who have adopted this accursed service to go back to our own houses, and
there employ ourselves in pleasanter occupations--in hunting or fishing,
for instance; for what squire in the world is there so poor as not to
have a hack and a couple of greyhounds and a fishingrod to amuse himself
with in his own village?"

"I am not in want of any of those things," said Sancho; "to be sure I
have no hack, but I have an ass that is worth my master's horse twice
over; God send me a bad Easter, and that the next one I am to see, if I
would swap, even if I got four bushels of barley to boot. You will laugh
at the value I put on my Dapple--for dapple is the colour of my beast. As
to greyhounds, I can't want for them, for there are enough and to spare
in my town; and, moreover, there is more pleasure in sport when it is at
other people's expense."

"In truth and earnest, sir squire," said he of the Grove, "I have made up
my mind and determined to have done with these drunken vagaries of these
knights, and go back to my village, and bring up my children; for I have
three, like three Oriental pearls."

"I have two," said Sancho, "that might be presented before the Pope
himself, especially a girl whom I am breeding up for a countess, please
God, though in spite of her mother."

"And how old is this lady that is being bred up for a countess?" asked he
of the Grove.

"Fifteen, a couple of years more or less," answered Sancho; "but she is
as tall as a lance, and as fresh as an April morning, and as strong as a
porter."

"Those are gifts to fit her to be not only a countess but a nymph of the
greenwood," said he of the Grove; "whoreson strumpet! what pith the rogue
must have!"

To which Sancho made answer, somewhat sulkily, "She's no strumpet, nor
was her mother, nor will either of them be, please God,