d in those rude notes a strain of
rare music, provided for his delectation while he sat at table; and he
concluded his repast in a state of high satisfaction with his first
day's adventures.

IV. THE KNIGHTLY VIGIL

But one uncomfortable thought chilled the heat of his enthusiasm--he had
not yet been dubbed a knight and was therefore still unqualified to
engage in any chivalrous adventure. Accordingly, as soon as he had
finished his scanty and sordid meal, he took the landlord aside, and
shutting himself up with him in the stable and falling on his knees
before him, said: "I will never rise from this posture, valiant knight,
until thou hast granted me of thy courtesy the favor which I desire, and
which shall redound to thine honor and to the benefit of the human
race."

Dumbfoundered at the strange attitude and still stranger language of his
guest, the landlord stared at him, not knowing what to do or say. He
begged him to rise, but Don Quixote steadily refused, so that at last he
was obliged to give the promise required.

"I expected no less from your High Mightiness," answered Don Quixote.
"And now hear what I desire: to-morrow at dawn you shall dub me knight,
and to that end I will this night keep the vigil of arms in the chapel
of your castle, so that I may be ready to receive the order of chivalry
in the morning and forthwith set out on the path of toil and glory which
awaits those who follow the perilous profession of knight-errant."

By this time the landlord began to perceive that Don Quixote was not
right in his wits, and being somewhat of a wag he resolved to make
matter for mirth by humoring his whim; and so he replied that such
ambition was most laudable, and just what he would have looked for in a
gentleman of his gallant presence. He had himself, he said, been a
cavalier of fortune in his youth--which in a certain sense was true, for
he had been a notorious thief and rogue, known to every magistrate in
Spain--and now, in his declining years, he was living in the retirement
of his castle, where his chief pleasure was to entertain wandering
knights; which, being interpreted, meant that he was a rascally landlord
and grew fat by cheating the unfortunate travelers who stayed at his
inn.

Then he went on to say that, with regard to the vigil of arms, it could
be held in the courtyard of the castle, as the chapel had been pulled
down to make place for a new one. "And to-morrow," he concluded, "you
shal