ing stories from this till daylight, unless indeedyou like to dismount and lie down to sleep a little on the green grassafter the fashion of knights-errant, so as to be fre射r when daycomes and the moment arrives for attempting this extraordinaryadventure you are looking forward to."
"What art thou talking about dismounting or sleeping for?" saidDon Quixote. "Am I, thinkest thou, one of those knights that taketheir rest in the presence of danger? Sleep thou who art born tosleep, or do as thou wilt, for I will act as I think most consistentwith my 插racter."
"Be not angry, master mine," replied Sancho, "I did not mean tosay that;" and coming close to him he laid one hand on the pommel ofthe saddle and the other on the cantle so that he held his master'sleft thigh in his embrace, not daring to separate a finger's widthfrom him; so much afraid was he of the strokes which still resoundedwith a regular beat. Don Quixote bade him tell some story to amuse himas he had proposed, to which Sancho replied that he would if his dreadof what he heard would let him; "Still," said he, "I will strive totell a story which, if I can manage to relate it, and nobodyinterferes with the telling, is the best of stories, and let yourworship give me your attention, for here I begin. What was, was; andmay the good that is to come be for all, and the evil for him who goesto look for it -your worship must know that the beginning the old folkused to put to their tales was not just as each one pleased; it wasa maxim of Cato Zonzorino the Roman, that says 'the evil for himthat goes to look for it,' and it comes as pat to the purpose now asring to finger, to show that your worship should keep quiet and not golooking for evil in any quarter, and that we should go back by someother road, since nobody forces us to follow this in which so manyterrors affright us."
"Go on with thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and leave thechoice of our road to my care."
"I say then," continued Sancho, "that in a