Posts tagged ‘knights’
Stories of Don Quixote Written Anew for Children Chapter 14: The Message to Dulcinea
Chapter 14: The Message to Dulcinea
One day as Don Quixote with his squire was strolling aimlessly through the roughest and wildest part of the mountains, he became suddenly very silent. “Friend Sancho,” he said, “as you value your life, I bid you not to speak a word to me until I give you leave.”
His mind was filled with queer, unreasoning fancies, and he seemed to be pondering upon some new and weighty subject.
So, all the day, they toiled wearily and slowly along, and neither spoke to the other.
Sancho Panza was very tired. He was almost ready to burst for want of a little chat. Still, with the saddle on his shoulders, he trudged silently at the heels of Rozinante, and kept his thoughts to himself.
At length, however, he could bear it no longer. He quickened his pace till he came alongside of his master. Then he laid his hand on Don Quixote’s knee, and spoke:—
“Good sir, give me your blessing and let me go home to my wife and children. There I may talk till I am weary, and nobody can hinder me. I tell you, this tramping over hills and dales, by night and by day, without opening my lips, is killing me. I cannot endure it.”
“Friend Sancho, I understand thee,” answered Don Quixote, “and I give thee leave to use thy tongue freely so long as we are alone together on this mountain road.”
“Then let us make hay while the sun shines,” cried Sancho. “I will talk while I can, for who knows what I may do afterward. Every man for himself, and God for us all, say I. Little said is soonest mended. There is no padlocking of men’s mouths; for a closed mouth catches no flies.”
“Pray have done with your proverbs,” said Don Quixote, sternly. “Listen to me, and I will unfold a plan which I have formed for my future course and for yours also, dear Sancho.”
Then he explained to the squire that it was his intention to send him forthwith to Toboso to carry a letter to the Lady Dulcinea.
“I desire that you shall start within three days,” he said, “and as you are very poor at walking, you may have the use of Rozinante, who will carry you with great safety and speed.”
“Very well, master,” said Sancho; “but what will you do while I am gone?”
“Do? Do you ask what I will do?” answered the knight. “Why, I have a mind to imitate that famous knight, Orlando, I mean to go mad, just as he did. I will throw away my armor, tear my clothes, pull up trees by the roots, knock my head against rocks, and do a thousand other things of that kind. You must wait and see me in some of my performances, Sancho, and then you must tell the Lady Dulcinea what you have beheld with your own eyes.”
“Oh, you need not go to any trouble about it,” said Sancho; “for I will tell the lady just the same. I will tell her of your thousand mad tricks, and bring you back her answer all full of sweet words.”
“As for those tricks, as you call them,” said Don Quixote, “I mean to perform them seriously and solemnly, for a knight must tell no lies. But I will write the letter immediately, and you shall set out on your journey tomorrow at sunrise.”
“And please, sir,” said Sancho, “do not forget to write that order to your niece for those three donkeys which you promised me.”
They stopped in the midst of a green thicket of underwoods, and there, after much ado, the letter was written and also the order for the donkeys. These were scrawled with a bit of charcoal in a little notebook which Don Quixote happened to find in his pocket.
“They are not very plainly written, Sancho,” he said; “but, in the first village to which you come, it will be easy to have the schoolmaster copy them neatly for you.”
Sancho took the notebook and put it carefully in his waistcoat pocket. “Now I am even wild to be gone,” he said. “I will mount Rozinante, and be off at once; for a bearer of messages should never delay his starting. Give me your blessing, dear master, and I will not wait to see any of your tricks.”
“Nay,” said Don Quixote. “Wait a little while, for you should see me practice twenty or thirty mad gambols, such as knocking my head against rocks, and the like. I can finish them in half an hour.”
“Say not so,” answered Sancho. “It would grieve me to the heart to see you playing the madman. I would cry my eyes out; and I have already blubbered too much since I lost my poor donkey. But I will tell the Lady Dulcinea about your tricks, just the same as though I had seen you do them.”
“Then I will give thee my blessing and let thee go,” said Don Quixote.
“But tell me, good master,” said Sancho, “what will you do for food when I am gone? Will you rob travelers on the highway, and steal your dinner from the shepherds hereabout?”
“Don’t worry about that, Sancho,” said his master. “I shall feed on the herbs and fruits of the forest, and want nothing more; for it is the duty of a mad knight to half starve himself. But you shall find me in good condition when you return.”
“But now comes another thing comes into my head,” said Sancho. “How shall I know this out-of-the-way place when I come back? How shall I find you again in this wilderness?”
“Strew a few green branches in the path, Sancho. Strew them as you ride along till you reach the main highway. They will serve as a clew to show you the way hither, if by chance you should forget the turning place.”
“I will go about it at once,” said Sancho.
So he went among the trees and cut a bundle of green boughs. Then he came and asked his master’s blessing; and after both had wept many tears, he mounted Rozinante.
“Be good to the noble steed, Sancho,” said Don Quixote. “Remember to be as kind to him as you have been to his master.”
“Indeed, I will not forget,” said Sancho; and he rode away, strewing the boughs as he went.
Don Quixote watched him until a turn of the road hid him from sight. Then he wandered into the wildest part of the woods, and was really as mad as the maddest knight he had ever read about.
Stories of Don Quixote Written Anew for Children Chapter 13: In the Black Mountains
Chapter 13: In the Black Mountains
The darkness of night found our two travelers in the midst of the mountains and far from any friendly inn. The sky was clear, however, and above the tree tops the round, full moon was shining brightly. Both knight and squire were weary from long traveling, and sore from the beating which they had received from the ungrateful thieves.
“Here we are!” at length cried Sancho, pulling up his donkey by the side of a huge rock. “Here we are, master. This is a pleasant, sheltered place. Let us tarry here till morning.”
“Truly, I am willing,” said Don Quixote.
Both men were so tired that they were loth to get down from their steeds. They sat quietly in their saddles, thinking, thinking; and soon both were fast asleep.
Don Quixote sat upright, bracing himself with the remnant of his oaken lance which he had rescued from the thicket. Sancho doubled himself over upon the pommel of his saddle, and snored as peacefully as though he were on a feather bed. As for Rozinante and patient Dapple, they were no less weary than their masters. They stood motionless in their places, and nothing short of a goad could have caused them to stir.
It chanced about midnight that the thief, Gines de Passamonte, came to this very spot, seeking the best way to escape from the forest. As he was passing by the great rock, he was astonished to see the two beasts and their riders resting quietly in its shadow. He crept up to them very gently, not wishing to disturb their slumbers.
“Ha!” he whispered to himself, “how soundly they sleep! These two foolish fellows ride safely along the public road, and are afraid of nothing. But I, with all my smartness, am obliged to skulk through the woods and tire myself to death with much walking. I wish I had one of these steeds.”
He walked around Rozinante and gently felt his ribs and stroked his long head. “He is only a frame of bones,” he said, “and there’s no telling how soon he may fall to pieces. I might manage to ride him, but at the end of the road I could neither sell him nor give him away.”
Then he went softly up to the dappled donkey and examined him from his nose to his hoofs.
“This beast could carry me, I know; and I could sell him for a dollar or two anywhere. But how shall I get him?”
He leaned against the rock and thought the matter over, while Sancho Panza made the woods resound with his snoring.
“It would be easy enough to tumble him off and take his steed by main force,” said Gines, still talking to himself. “But the poor fellow did me a good turn today, and I don’t like to disturb his slumbers.”
Presently he took his jackknife from his pocket and went stealthily into a grove of small trees by the roadside. There, having found some slender saplings, he cut four strong poles as large as his wrist and as long as his body.
With these in hands he returned to the donkey and slyly unbuckled the girths of the saddle. Sancho Panza, with his feet firmly in the stirrups and his short body doubled snugly upon the pommel, was not at all disturbed. He snored so loudly that no other sound could possibly be heard.
The cunning Gines smiled at his own ingenuity. He placed one end of each of his four poles under a corner of the saddle, the other end resting firmly upon the ground. Then he carefully and very gradually moved the bottom ends closer and closer to the donkey’s feet. This, of course, raised the saddle some inches above the animal’s back, while Sancho still slept the sleep of the weary.
Gines tried each pole to see that it stood like a brace, strong and secure. Then he led the donkey out from under, leaving the saddle and Sancho high up in the air.
It was a funny sight, there in the still light of the moon; and Gines de Passamonte looked back and laughed. He then threw himself upon the donkey’s bare back and rode joyfully away.
Sancho Panza slept and snored, and stirred not an inch. The hours of the night passed silently by, and the moon and stars journeyed slowly down the western sky. At length the day dawned, and the sunlight began to peep through the trees.
Sancho was at most times an early riser. With the coming of the morning he stopped snoring. Then he slowly opened his eyes, raised his arms, and yawned. The motion of his body caused the supporting poles to twist around and give way; the saddle suddenly turned beneath him, and he fell sprawling to the ground.
The sudden noise awoke Don Quixote.
“Where is thy donkey, friend Sancho?” he asked, looking around quickly.
“You may well ask where is my donkey,” answered the squire, rising from the ground and rubbing his eyes. “My donkey’s gone. Some thief has led him away in the night, and left me nothing but four sticks and the saddle which I got in exchange from the barber.”
“Thief, indeed!” said Don Quixote. “It was no thief. Those same wicked enchanters have done it. They have changed the poor beast into four sticks; and now you will have to walk until we learn how to remove the enchantment and change the sticks back to a donkey.”
Sancho Panza was sorely distressed. He looked at the saddle and at the sticks, and then at the tracks which the donkey had left in the dust of the road. Tears came to his eyes, and he broke out into the saddest and most pitiful lamentation that ever was heard.
“Oh, my Dapple, my donkey! Oh, dear one, born and bred under my own roof! Thou wert the playfellow of my children, the comfort of my wife, the envy of my neighbors. Thou wert the easer of my burdens, the staff and stay of my life. And now, thou art gone, thou art gone. Oh, my Dapple, my donkey! How can I live without thee?”
Don Quixote’s kind heart was touched. “Never mind, dear Sancho,” he said. “Dry thy tears. I have five donkeys at home, and I will give thee an order on my niece for three of them. I will write it with the first pen and ink we encounter.”
This generous offer turned Sancho’s grief into joy. It dried his tears; it hushed his cries; it changed his moans to smiles and thanks.
“You were always a good master,” he said; “and I would rather meet with that pen and ink than with any number of knights.”
Then knight and squire sat down together on the ground and munched some bits of dry bread merely to say they had breakfasted. And after Rozinante had eaten his fill of the sweet grass by the roadside, they resumed their journey through the mountains. Don Quixote rode in advance, and Sancho followed slowly with the donkey’s saddle astride of his shoulders.
Stories of Don Quixote Written Anew for Children Chapter 12: The Adventure with the Prisoners
Chapter 12: The Adventure with the Prisoners
Day after day, the two travelers jogged slowly along, rambling hither and thither wherever their fancy chose to wander. At length they came into the rugged highway which leads through the Black Mountains, or, as they are called in Spain, the Sierra Morena.
“Now we shall have our fill of adventures,” said Don Quixote.
It was to be even so; for at the top of the first hill they saw twelve strange men trudging along the highway and slowly approaching them. The men were all in a row, one behind another, like beads on a string; for they were linked to a long chain by means of iron collars around their necks.
In front of this procession rode two horsemen with guns; and the rear was brought up by two foot guards with swords and clubs.
“See there, master,” said Sancho. “See those poor fellows who are being taken away to serve the king in the galleys.”
“Why are they being treated in that ugly fashion?” asked Don Quixote, reining in his steed.
“Well, they are rogues,” was the answer. “They have broken the law and been caught at it. They are now on their way to the king’s galleys to be punished.”
“If that is the case,” said Don Quixote, “they shall have my help. For I am sworn to hinder violence and oppression.”
“But these wicked wretches are not oppressed,” said Sancho. “They are only getting what they deserve.”
Don Quixote was not satisfied. “At any rate, they are in trouble,” he answered.
Soon the chain of prisoners had come up.
“Pray, sir,” said Don Quixote to one of the mounted men who was captain of the guards, “why are these people led along in that manner?”
“They are criminals,” answered the captain. “They have been condemned to serve the king in his galleys. I have no more to say to you.”
“Well, I should like to know what each one has done,” said Don Quixote.
“I can’t talk with you,” said the captain. “But while they rest here at the top of the hill, you may ask the rogues themselves, if you wish. They are so honest and truthful that they will not be ashamed to tell you.”
Don Quixote was much pleased. He rode up to the chain and began to question the men.
“Why were you condemned to the galleys, my good fellow?” he asked of the leader.
“Oh, only for being in love,” was the careless answer.
“Indeed!” cried Don Quixote. “If all who are in love must be sent to the galleys, what will become of us?”
“True enough!” said the prisoner. “But my love was not of the common kind. I was so in love with a basket of clothes that I took it in my arms and carried it home. I was accused of stealing it, and here I am.”
Don Quixote then turned to another. “And what have you done, my honest man?” he asked. “Why are you in this sad case?”
“I will tell you,” answered the man. “I am here for the lack of two gold pieces to pay an honest debt.”
“Well, well, that is too bad,” said the knight. “I will give you four gold pieces and set you free.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the prisoner. “But you might as well give money to a starving man at sea where there is nothing to buy. If I had had the gold pieces before my trial, I might now be in a different place.”
Thus Don Quixote went from one prisoner to another, asking each to tell his history.
The last man in the chain was a clever, well-built fellow about thirty years old. He squinted with one eye, and had a wickeder look than any of the others.
Don Quixote noticed that this man was strangely loaded with irons. He had two collars around his neck, and his wrists were so fastened to an iron bar that he could not lift his hands to his mouth.
The knight turned to one of the foot guards. “Why is this man so hampered with irons?” he asked.
“Because he is the worst of the lot,” was the answer. “He is so bold and cunning that no jail nor fetters will hold him. You see how heavily ironed he is, and yet we are never sure that we have him.”
“But what has he done?” asked Don Quixote.
“Done!” said the guard. “What has he not done? Why, sir, he is the famous thief and robber, Gines de Passamonte.”
Then the prisoner himself spoke up quickly. “Sir, if you have anything to give us, give it quickly and ride on. I won’t answer any of your questions.”
“My friend,” said Don Quixote, “you appear to be a man of consequence, and I should like to know your history.”
“It is all written down in black and white,” answered Gines. “You may buy it and read it.”
“He tells you the truth,” said the guard. “He has written his whole history in a book.”
“What is the title of the book?” asked Don Quixote. “I must have it.”
“It is called the Life of Gines de Passamonte, and every word of it is true,” answered the prisoner. “There is no fanciful tale that compares with it for tricks and adventures.”
“You are an extraordinary man,” said Don Quixote.
By this time the guards had given the command and the human chain was again toiling slowly along over the hill. But Don Quixote was not yet satisfied. He followed, making a long speech first to the prisoners and then to the guards. At length he raised himself in his stirrups, and cried out:—”Gentlemen of the guard, I am the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha. I command you to release these poor men. If you refuse, then know that this lance, this sword, and this invincible arm will force you to yield.”
“That’s a good joke,” said the captain of the guard. “Now set your basin right on top of your empty head, and go about your business. Don’t meddle any more with us, for those who play with cats are likely to be scratched.”
This made Don Quixote very angry. “You’re a cat and a rat, and a coward to boot!” he cried. And he charged upon him so suddenly and furiously that the captain had no time to defend himself, but was tumbled headlong and helpless into the mud.
The other guards hurried to the rescue. They attacked Don Quixote with their swords and clubs, and he, wheeling Rozinante around, defended himself with his heavy lance. He would have fared very badly had not the prisoners made a great hurly-burly and begun to break their chain.
Seeing the confusion and wishing to give aid to his master, Sancho leaped from his donkey, and, running up to Gines de Passamonte, began to unfasten his irons. The conflict which now followed was dreadful. The guards had enough to do to defend themselves from the wild thrusts of Don Quixote’s lance. They seemed to lose their senses, so great was the uproar.
The prisoners soon freed themselves from their irons and were masters of the field. The guards were routed. They fled with all speed down the highway, followed by a shower of stones from the prisoners. It was a mile to the nearest village, and thither they hastened for help.
Sancho Panza remounted his donkey and drew up to his master’s side. “Hearken,” he whispered. “The king’s officers will soon be after us. Let us hurry into the forest and hide ourselves.”
“Hush,” said Don Quixote, impatiently. “I know what I have to do.”
Then he called the prisoners around him and made a little speech:— “Gentlemen, you understand what a great service I have rendered you. For this I desire no recompense. But I shall require each one of you to go straightway to the city of Toboso and present himself before that fairest of all ladies, the matchless Lady Dulcinea. Give her an exact account of this famous achievement, and receive her permission to seek your various fortunes in such ways and places as you most desire.”
The prisoners grinned insolently, and Gines de Passamonte made answer:— “Most noble deliverers, that which you require of us is impossible. We must part right quickly. Some of us must skulk one way, some another. We must lie hidden in holes and among the rocks. The man hounds will soon be on our tracks, and we dare not show ourselves. As to going to Toboso to see that Lady Dulcinea, it’s all nonsense.”
These words put Don Quixote into a great rage. He shook his lance at the robber, and cried out:— “Now you, Sir Gines, or whatever be your name may be, hear me! You, yourself, shall go alone to Toboso, like a dog with a scalded tail. You shall go with the whole chain wrapped around your shoulders, and shall deliver the message as I have commanded.”
Gines smiled at this bold threat, and made no answer. But his companions with one accord fell upon the knight, dragged him from his steed, and threw him upon the ground.
They stripped him of his coat and even robbed him of his long black stockings. One of them snatched the basin from his head and knocked it against a rock until it was dented and scarred most shamefully. And one broke his long lance in two and threw it into a thicket of thorns.
As for Sancho, he fared but little better. They took his coat, but left him his vest. They would have taken his shoes had they been worth the trouble.
Having thus amused themselves for a few hasty minutes, the rascals departed. They scattered in different directions, each one to shift for himself. They were much more anxious to escape the officers of the law than to present themselves before the Lady Dulcinea del Toboso.
Thus the dappled donkey, Rozinante, Sancho Panza, and Don Quixote were left the sole masters of the field. But they were sorry masters, every one of them.
“Friend Sancho,” said Don Quixote, rising from the muddy road, “there is a proverb which I desire thee to remember. It is this: One might as well throw water into the sea as do a kindness to clowns.”
He sought in the thicket for his broken lance, and, having recovered the half of it, he made shift to climb upon Rozinante’s back. The day was far gone, and he rode silently and thoughtfully onward into the heart of the Black Mountains. And Sancho Panza, on his dappled donkey, followed him.
Stories of Don Quixote Written Anew for Children Chapter 11: The Adventure with the Barber
Chapter 11: The Adventure with the Barber
Days passed, and still Don Quixote rode bare-headed: for as yet he had found no means whereby to win for himself a new helmet. Every day, however, had its adventures, and every turn of the road seemed to lead the knight and his squire into new fields of action.
One morning as they were riding along a highway from a small village to a larger one, they saw a horseman coming slowly towards them.
“See there!” cried Don Quixote. “Now I shall have an adventure that will redound to my glory.”
“Why do you think so?” asked Sancho.
“Do you not see that horseman?” answered Don Quixote. “He wears something on his head that glitters like gold. If I mistake not, he is a knight, and it is Mambrino’s helmet that he wears.”
“Mambrino’s helmet, master!” said Sancho. “What about Mambrino’s helmet?”
“Thou knowest my vow, Sancho,” was the answer. “Tomorrow I shall eat bread on a tablecloth. For that knight who is riding toward us on his prancing steed has a helmet of gold on his head.”
“I don’t see any knight,” said Sancho. “I see only a common man riding a gray donkey much like my own. There is something bright on the top of his head; but all is not gold that glitters.”
“I tell thee, it is Mambrino’s helmet, and it is gold!” cried Don Quixote, growing angry.
Now the truth of the matter is this: The smaller of the two villages I have mentioned had no barber. The people, therefore, were obliged to depend on the barber of the larger village, who rode over whenever he was wanted.
Sometimes he was called upon to trim the men’s beards, sometimes to dress the ladies’ hair; but he was oftenest required to bleed some person who was not feeling well. For in those times it was the custom, when anyone was sick, to open one of his veins and let the “bad” blood run. This was thought to be the best medicine and a cure for all sorts of ailments.
To do this bloodletting was, indeed, the main business of a barber. His sign was a pole with red stripes running spirally around it. These red stripes represented the bloody bandage which was used to bind up the wound. The same sign is used by barbers even now; but good barbers never bleed their customers.
In those olden times, the barber always had a brass basin in which to catch the blood as it flowed from the patient’s arm. This basin was kept very bright and clean; for it was a necessary thing in every barber’s shop, and often used.
And now let us go back to our story. The “knight on his prancing steed” was nobody but the barber of the bigger village, riding on his gray donkey to visit his patients in the smaller village.
The morning was cloudy, and rain might begin to fall at any minute. The barber had a new hat which the rain would spoil. To guard against this misfortune, he clapped his brass basin, upside down, upon his head. It covered hat and all, and was proof against the rain.
Don Quixote, as we know, wanted a helmet. He had read so much about Mambrino’s helmet that he could think of nothing else. His mind, having dwelt so long upon this subject, could turn anything he chose into a golden helmet. Some people in our own times can do as much.
As the barber came nearer, the knight raised his lance, which you will remember was only the branch of a tree. He braced himself in his stirrups and made ready for a charge.
Then he shouted, “Wretch, defend thyself, or at once surrender that which is justly mine.” And without further parley, he rushed upon the barber as fast as Rozinante, with his blundering feet, could carry him.
The barber saw him coming, and had just time enough to throw himself from his donkey and take to his heels. He leaped the hedge at the side of the road and ran across the fields with the swiftness of a deer. But the brass basin, having slipped from his head, was left lying in the dust.
Don Quixote checked his steed. “Here, Sancho!” he cried. “Here is my helmet. Come and pick it up.”
“Upon my word, that is a fine basin,” said Sancho, as he stooped and handed it to his master.
Don Quixote, with great delight, clapped it on his head. He turned it this way and that, and tilted it backward and forward.
“It is pretty large,” he said. “The head for which it was made must have been a big one. The worst is, that it has no visor, and half of one side is lacking.”
Sancho could not help smiling.
“What is the fool grinning at now?” cried his master, angrily.
“Oh, nothing,” answered Sancho. “I was only thinking what a big jolthead it must have been to wear a helmet so much like a barber’s basin.”
“Well, it does look like a barber’s basin,” said Don Quixote. “But that is because some enchanter has changed its form. When we come to a town where there is an armorer, I will have it made over into its proper shape; for there is no doubt that it is really the helmet of the famous Mambrino.”
He turned it about on his head, and pulled it well down over his ears.
“I’ll wear it as it is,” he said. “It is better than nothing.”
“There is that knight’s dappled steed,” said Sancho, pointing to the barber’s gray donkey which was nibbling grass by the roadside. “I have a good mind to exchange my own faithful beast for him.”
“Well, exchange is no robbery,” answered Don Quixote. “We do not plunder those whom we meet, for that would be unbecoming to a knight. The dappled steed is no doubt very dear to its master and therefore should be spared to him; but I give thee leave, Sancho, to exchange saddles.”
“You are a wise master,” said Sancho; and without another word he made his own poor donkey look three times better by dressing him in the barber’s saddle.
Then, well satisfied with themselves and their plunder, the knight and the squire renewed their journey.
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