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The peasant, seeing a fully armed figure ready to attack and brandishing a lance in his face, considered himself a dead man, and with gentle words he replied:

“Señor Knight, this boy I’m punishing is one of my servants, and his job is to watch over a flock of sheep I keep in this area, and he’s so careless that I lose one every day, and when I punish his carelessness, or villainy, he says I do it out of miserliness because I don’t want to pay him his wages, and by God and my immortal soul, he lies.”

“You dare to say ‘He lies’ in my presence, base varlet?”1 said Don Quixote. “By the sun that shines down on us, I am ready to run you through with this lance. Pay him now without another word; if you do not, by the God who rules us I shall exterminate and annihilate you here and now. Untie him immediately.”

The peasant lowered his head and, without responding, he untied his servant, and Don Quixote asked the boy how much his master owed him. He said wages for nine months, at seven reales a month. Don Quixote calculated the sum and found that it amounted to seventy-three reales,2 and he told the peasant to take that amount from his purse unless he wanted to die on their account. The terrified farmer replied that by the danger in which he found himself and the oath he had sworn—and so far he had sworn to nothing—the total was not so high, because from that amount one had to subtract and take into account three pairs of shoes that he had given his servant and a real for the two bloodlettings he had provided for him when he was sick.

“All of that is fine,” said Don Quixote, “but the shoes and bloodlettings should compensate for the blows you have given him for no reason, for if he damaged the hide of the shoes you paid for, you have damaged the hide of his body, and if the barber drew blood when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was healthy; therefore, by this token, he owes you nothing.”

“The difficulty, Señor Knight, is that I have no money here: let Andrés come with me to my house, and I’ll pay him all the reales he deserves.”

“Me, go back with him?” said the boy. “Not me! No, Señor, don’t even think of it; as soon as we’re alone he’ll skin me alive, just like St. Bartholomew.”

“No, he will not,” replied Don Quixote. “It is enough for me to command and he will respect me, and if he swears to me by the order of chivalry that he has received, I shall let him go free, and I shall guarantee the payment.”

“Señor, your grace, think of what you are saying,” said the boy. “For this master of mine is no knight and he’s never received any order of chivalry; he’s Juan Haldudo the rich man, and he lives in Quintanar.”

“That is of no importance,” replied Don Quixote. “For there can be knights among Haldudos, especially since each man is the child of his deeds.”

“That’s true,” said Andrés, “but what deeds is this master of mine the son of if he denies me my wages and my sweat and my labor?”

“I don’t deny them, Andrés, my brother,” answered the farmer. “Be so kind as to come with me, and I swear by all the orders of chivalry in the world that I’ll pay you, as I’ve said, one real after another, and they’ll be perfumed by my goodwill and pleasure.”

“I absolve you from perfumes,” said Don Quixote. “Just pay him in reales, and that will satisfy me, and be sure you fulfill what you have sworn; if you do not, by that same vow I vow that I shall return to find and punish you, and find you I shall, even if you conceal yourself like a wall lizard. And if you wish to know who commands you to do this, so that you have an even greater obligation to comply, know that I am the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, the righter of wrongs and injustices, and now go with God, and do not even think of deviating from what you have promised and sworn, under penalty of the penalty I have indicated to you.”

And having said this, he spurred Rocinante and soon left them behind. The farmer followed him with his eyes, and when he saw that he had