his, thinking himself lucky to have got rid of the knight so
cheaply, and he closed the door behind him as quickly as possible,
thanking his lucky stars that Don Quixote was gone.

CHAPTER IV

WHICH TREATS OF DON QUIXOTE'S FURTHER ADVENTURES

It was dawn when Don Quixote quitted the inn. He decided to return
home to provide himself with money, shirts, and a squire, as the
innkeeper had suggested, and so he turned his horse's head toward his
village.

He had not gone far, however, when he heard a feeble cry from the
depths of a thicket on the roadside, as of some one in pain. He paused
to thank Heaven for having favored him with this opportunity of
fulfilling the obligation he had undertaken and gathering the fruit of
his ambition; for he was certain that he had been called on from above
to give aid and protection to some one in dire need. He quickly turned
Rocinante in the direction from which the cries seemed to come; and he
had gone but a few paces into the wood when he saw a youth, stripped
to the waist and tied to a tree, being flogged in a merciless way by a
powerful farmer. All the while the boy was crying out in his agony: "I
won't do it again, master! I won't do it again! I promise I'll take
better care of the sheep hereafter!"

When Don Quixote saw what was going on he became most indignant.

"Discourteous knight," he commanded in angry tones, "it ill becomes
you to assail one who cannot defend himself! Mount your steed and take
your lance! I will make you know that you are behaving like a coward!"

The farmer looked up and saw Don Quixote in full armor, brandishing a
lance over his head. He gave himself up for dead, then, and answered
meekly:

"Sir knight, the youth I am chastising is my servant. I employ him to
watch a flock of sheep, and he is so careless that he loses one for me
every day. And when I punish him for being careless, he accuses me of
being a miser, saying that I do it that I might escape paying him the
wages I owe him. That, I swear, is a sinful lie!"

But the farmer's defense only angered Don Quixote all the more. He
threatened to run the man through with his lance if he did not release
the boy at once and pay him every penny he owed him in wages. Don
Quixote then helped the lad to add up how much nine months' wages at
seven reals a month might be, and found that it would make sixty-three
reals; and the farmer was given his choice between paying his debt and
dying upon the