OF WHAT A GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE

Just then another young man, one of those who fetched their provisions

from the village, came up and said, "Do you know what is going on in the

village, comrades?"

"How could we know it?" replied one of them.

"Well, then, you must know," continued the young man, "this morning that

famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured that

he died of love for that devil of a village girl the daughter of

Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the dress of

a shepherdess."

Advertisement..

"You mean Marcela?" said one.

"Her I mean," answered the goatherd; "and the best of it is, he has

directed in his will that he is to be buried in the fields like a Moor,

and at the foot of the rock where the Cork-tree spring is, because, as

the story goes (and they say he himself said so), that was the place

where he first saw her. And he has also left other directions which the

clergy of the village say should not and must not be obeyed because they

savour of paganism. To all which his great friend Ambrosio the student,

he who, like him, also went dressed as a shepherd, replies that

everything must be done without any omission according to the directions

left by Chrysostom, and about this the village is all in commotion;

however, report says that, after all, what Ambrosio and all the shepherds

his friends desire will be done, and to-morrow they are coming to bury

him with great ceremony where I said. I am sure it will be something

worth seeing; at least I will not fail to go and see it even if I knew I

should not return to the village tomorrow."

"We will do the same," answered the goatherds, "and cast lots to see who

must stay to mind the goats of all."

"Thou sayest well, Pedro," said one, "though there will be no need of

taking that trouble, for I will stay behind for all; and don't suppose it

is virtue or want of curiosity in me; it is that the splinter that ran

into my foot the other day will not let me walk."

"For all that, we thank thee," answered Pedro.

Don Quixote asked Pedro to tell him who the dead man was and who the

shepherdess, to which Pedro replied that all he knew was that the dead

man was a wealthy gentleman belonging to a village in those mountains,

who had been a student at Salamanca for many years, at the end of which

he returned to his village with the reputation of being very learned and

deeply read. "Above all, they said, he was learned in the science of the

stars and of what went on yonder in the heavens and the sun and the moon,

for he told us of the cris of the sun and moon to exact time."




Most Popular