has been said, of the pack-saddles and all the trappings of the two best mules he had, though there were twelve of them, sleek, plump, and in prime condition, for he was one of the rich carriers of Arévalo, according to the author of this history, who particularly mentions this carrier because he knew him very well, and they even say was in some degree a relation of his;[1] besides which Cid Hamet Benengeli was a historian of great research and accuracy in all things, as is very evident since he would not pass over in silence those that have been already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they might be, an example that might be followed by those grave historians who relate transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a taste of them, all the substance of the work being left in the ink-bottle from carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand blessings on the author of "Tablante de Ricamonte," and that of the other book in which the deeds of the Conde Tomillas are recounted; with what minuteness they describe everything![2]
To proceed, then: after having paid a visit to his team and given them their second feed, the carrier stretched himself on his pack-saddles and lay waiting for his conscientious Maritornes. Sancho was by this time plastered and had lain down, and though he strove to sleep the pain of his ribs would not let him, while Don Quixote with the pain of his, had his eyes as wide open as a hare's. The inn was all in silence, and in the whole of it there was no light except that given by a lantern that hung burning in the middle of the gateway. This strange stillness, and the thoughts, always present to our knight's mind, of the incidents described at every turn in the books that were the cause of his misfortune, conjured up to his imagination as extraordinary a delusion as can well be conceived, which was that he fancied himself to have reached a famous castle (for, as has been said, all the inns he lodged in were castles to his eyes), and that the daughter of the innkeeper was daughter of the lord of the castle, and that she, won by his high-bred bearing, had fallen in love with him, and had prom-
- ↑ The carrier business, Pellicer points out, was extensively followed by the Moriscoes, as it afforded them an excuse for absenting themselves from Mass.
- ↑ Crónica de Tablante de Ricamonte, a romance of uncertain date and origin, based upon the Arthurian legend. The Conde Tomillas was a personage at the Court of Charlemagne mentioned in the Montesinos ballads, but no book of his deeds is known.
