Corchuelo sat down wearied, and Sancho approaching him said, "By my
faith, senor bachelor, if your worship takes my advice, you will never
challenge anyone to fence again, only to wrestle and throw the bar, for
you have the youth and strength for that; but as for these fencers as
they call them, I have heard say they can put the point of a sword
through the eye of a needle."
"I am satisfied with having tumbled off my donkey," said Corchuelo, "and
with having had the truth I was so ignorant of proved to me by
experience;" and getting up he embraced the licentiate, and they were
better friends than ever; and not caring to wait for the notary who had
gone for the sword, as they saw he would be a long time about it, they
resolved to push on so as to reach the village of Quiteria, to which they
all belonged, in good time.
During the remainder of the journey the licentiate held forth to them on
the excellences of the sword, with such conclusive arguments, and such
figures and mathematical proofs, that all were convinced of the value of
the science, and Corchuelo cured of his dogmatism.
It grew dark; but before they reached the town it seemed to them all as
if there was a heaven full of countless glittering stars in front of it.
They heard, too, the pleasant mingled notes of a variety of instruments,
flutes, drums, psalteries, pipes, tabors, and timbrels, and as they drew
near they perceived that the trees of a leafy arcade that had been
constructed at the entrance of the town were filled with lights
unaffected by the wind, for the breeze at the time was so gentle that it
had not power to stir the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the
life of the wedding, wandering through the pleasant grounds in separate
bands, some dancing, others singing, others playing the various
instruments already mentioned. In short, it seemed as though mirth and
gaiety were frisking and gambolling all over the meadow. Several other
persons were engaged in erecting raised benches from which people might
conveniently see the plays and dances that were to be performed the next
day on the spot dedicated to the celebration of the marriage of Camacho
the rich and the obsequies of Basilio. Don Quixote would not enter the
village, although the peasant as well as the bachelor pressed him; he
excused himself, however, on the grounds, amply sufficient in his
opinion, that it was the custom of knights-errant to sleep in the fields
and woods in preference to towns, even were it under gilded ceilings; and
so turned aside a little out of the road, very much against Sancho's
will, as the good quarters he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don
Diego came back to his mind.