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Over there I was in constant fear for him because of his knight-errantry and his candor. Once he came near being involved in a duel because of his quixotic championship of a woman whom he barely knew, and disliked, and whose absent husband he did not know at all.
He then, for the first time, recollected the situation in which he had left the other thief, and, remembering to have heard a female shriek, as he passed by the coach window, resolved to return with all expedition, that he might make a proffer of his service to the lady, according to the obligation of knight-errantry.
Nothing would atone for an insult offered to a lady; and when it was Hind's duty to seize part of a gentlewoman's dowry on the Petersfield road, he not only pleaded his necessity in eloquent excuse, but he made many promises on behalf of knight-errantry and damsels in distress.
"So far," said Don Lorenzo to himself, "I should not take you to be a madman; but let us go on." So he said to him, "Your worship has apparently attended the schools; what sciences have you studied?" "That of knight-errantry," said Don Quixote, "which is as good as that of poetry, and even a finger or two above it."
And there was Don Quixote observing all these strange proceedings attentively without uttering a word, and attributing the whole to chimeras of knight-errantry.
"It may be said, too," added Sancho, "that we eat it in the chill of our bodies; for who gets more heat and cold than the miserable squires of knight-errantry? Even so it would not be so bad if we had something to eat, for woes are lighter if there's bread; but sometimes we go a day or two without breaking our fast, except with the wind that blows."
At length the duke came out to take her down, and as they entered a spacious court two fair damsels came forward and threw over Don Quixote's shoulders a large mantle of the finest scarlet cloth, and at the same instant all the galleries of the court were lined with the men-servants and women-servants of the household, crying, "Welcome, flower and cream of knight-errantry!" while all or most of them flung pellets filled with scented water over Don Quixote and the duke and duchess; at all which Don Quixote was greatly astonished, and this was the first time that he thoroughly felt and believed himself to be a knight-errant in reality and not merely in fancy, now that he saw himself treated in the same way as he had read of such knights being treated in days of yore.
It was a matter of knight-errantry and ladies fair! But who was it whose choice conflicted with your own?" He cocked his head on one side, mock thoughtful; then he fell to pounding his knee and roared with laughter. "Archie Wickersham!" he shouted. "Archie Wickersham oh, Lord! I never really appreciated that mêlée until this minute.
Don Quixote listened very calmly, and then asked that he might be left by himself for a little he had a mind to sleep. His niece and Sancho left the room weeping bitterly, and Don Quixote fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, with a firm voice he cried: "Blessed be God! My mind is is now clear, and the clouds have rolled away which those detestable books of knight-errantry cast over me.
Now, for my part, I humbly conceive that you have acted much the best and wisest part; for certainly it is more consonant to all the principles of reason and religion, natural and revealed, to replenish the earth with inhabitants than to depopulate it by killing those already in existence. Besides, it is time for the age of knight-errantry and mad heroism to be at an end.
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