Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) 📕

“It remains to be proved whether this gallant has clean hands or not,” said Sancho; and turning to the man he asked him what he had to say in answer to the woman’s charge.

He all in confusion made answer, “Sirs, I am a poor pig dealer, and this morning I left the village to sell (saving your presence) four pigs, and between dues and cribbings they got out of me little less than the worth of them. As I was returning to my village I fell in on the road with this good dame, and the devil who makes a coil and a mess out of everything, yoked us together. I paid her fairly, but she not contented laid hold of me and never let go until she brought me here; she says I forced her, but she lies by the oath I swear or am ready to swear; and this is the whole truth and every particle of it.”

The governor on this asked him if he had any money in silver about him; he said he had about twenty ducats in a leather purse in his bosom. The governor bade him take it out and hand it to the complainant; he obeyed trembling; the woman took it, and making a thousand salaams to all and praying to God for the long life and health of the señor governor who had such regard for distressed orphans and virgins, she hurried out of court with the purse grasped in both her hands, first looking, however, to see if the money it contained was silver.

As soon as she was gone Sancho said to the cattle dealer, whose tears were already starting and whose eyes and heart were following his purse, “Good fellow, go after that woman and take the purse from her, by force even, and come back with it here;” and he did not say it to one who was a fool or deaf, for the man was off like a flash of lightning, and ran to do as he was bid.

All the bystanders waited anxiously to see the end of the case, and presently both man and woman came back at even closer grips than before, she with her petticoat up and the purse in the lap of it, and he struggling hard to take it from her, but all to no purpose, so stout was the woman’s defence, she all the while crying out, “Justice from God and the world! see here, señor governor, the shamelessness and boldness of this villain, who in the middle of the town, in the middle of the street, wanted to take from me the purse your worship bade him give me.”

“And did he take it?” asked the governor.

“Take it!” said the woman; “I’d let my life be taken from me sooner than the purse. A pretty child I’d be! It’s another sort of cat they must throw in my face, and not that poor scurvy knave. Pincers and hammers, mallets and chisels would not get it out of my grip; no, nor lions’ claws; the soul from out of my body first!”

“She is right,” said the man; “I own myself beaten and powerless; I confess I haven’t the strength to take it from her;” and he let go his hold of her.

Upon this the governor said to the woman, “Let me see that purse, my worthy and sturdy friend.” She handed it to him at once, and the governor returned it to the man, and said to the unforced mistress of force, “Sister, if you had shown as much, or only half as much, spirit and vigour in defending your body as you have shown in defending that purse, the strength of Hercules could not have forced you. Be off, and God speed you, and bad luck to you, and don’t show your face in all this island, or within six leagues of it on any side, under pain of two hundred lashes; be off at once, I say, you shameless, cheating shrew.”819

The woman was cowed and went off disconsolately, hanging her head; and the governor said to the man, “Honest man, go home with your money, and God speed you; and for the future, if you don’t want to lose it, see that you don’t take it into your head to yoke with anybody.” The man thanked him as clumsily as he could and went his way, and the bystanders were again filled with admiration at their new governor’s judgments and sentences.

Next, two men, one apparently a farm labourer, and the other a tailor, for he had a pair of shears in his hand, presented themselves before him, and the tailor said, “Señor governor, this labourer and I come before your worship by reason of this honest man coming to my shop yesterday (for saving everybody’s presence I’m a passed tailor, God be thanked), and putting a piece of cloth into my hands and asking me, ‘Señor, will there be enough in this cloth to make me a cap?’ Measuring the cloth I said there would. He probably suspected⁠—as I supposed, and I supposed right⁠—that I wanted to steal some of the cloth, led to think so by his own roguery and the bad opinion people have of tailors; and he told me to see if there would be enough for two. I guessed what he would be at, and I said ‘yes.’ He, still following up his original unworthy notion, went on adding cap after cap, and I ‘yes’ after ‘yes,’ until we got as far as five. He has just this moment come for them; I gave them to him, but he won’t pay me for the making; on the contrary, he calls upon me to pay him, or else return his cloth.”

“Is all this true, brother?” said Sancho.

“Yes,” replied the man; “but will your worship make him show the five caps he has made me?”

“With all my heart,”