Page:Don Quixote (Cervantes, Ormsby) Volume 1.djvu/123

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CHAPTER IV.
19

might of his arm. She answered with great humility that she was called La Tolosa, and that she was a daughter of a cobbler of Toledo who lived in the stalls of Sanchobienaya,[1] and that wherever she might be she would serve and esteem him as her lord. Don Quixote said in reply that she would do him a favor if thenceforward she assumed the "Don" and called herself Doña Tolosa. She promised she would, and then the other buckled on his spur, and with her followed almost the same conversation as with the lady of the sword. He asked her name, and she said it was La Molinera,[2] and that she was the daughter of a respectable miller of Antequera; and of her likewise Don Quixote requested that she would adopt the "Don" and call herself Doña Molinera, making offers to her of further services and favors.

Having thus, with hot haste and speed, brought to a conclusion these never-till-now-seen ceremonies, Don Quixote was on thorns until he saw himself on horseback sallying forth in quest of adventures; and saddling Rocinante at once he mounted, and embracing his host, as he returned thanks for his kindness in knighting him, he addressed him in language so extraordinary that it is impossible to convey an idea of it or report it. The landlord, to get him out of the inn, replied with no less rhetoric though with shorter words, and without calling upon him to pay the reckoning, let him go with a Godspeed.



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 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

  1. An old plaza in Toledo, so called probably from a family of the name of Ben Haya; or, as Pellicer suggests, from a corruption of Minaya.
  2. i.e. "the Milleress."