Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/102

90 also. On which account, I am found in these deserts and solitudes, in quest of adventures, fully determined to lift my arm, and expose my person to the greatest danger, that my destiny shall decree, in behalf of the needy and oppressed."

By this declaration, the travellers were convinced that the knight had lost his wits, and easily perceived the species of folly which had taken possession of his brain, and which struck them with the same surprise that always seizes those who became acquainted with our knight. Vivaldo, who was a person of discretion, and a great deal of archness, in order to travel agreeably the rest of the road which they had to go, till they should come to the place of interment, wanted to give him an opportunity of proceeding in his extravagance, and in that view said to him, "Sir knight-errant, methinks your worship professes one of the strictest orders upon earth, nay, I will affirm, more strict than that of the Carthusian friars."

"The order of the Carthusians," answered Don Quixote, "may be as strict, but that it is as beneficial to mankind, I am within a hair's-breadth of doubting; for, to be plain with you, the soldier who executes his captain's command, is no less valuable than the captain who gave the order: I mean, that the monks pray to God for their fellow-creatures in peace and safety: but, we soldiers and knights put in execution that for which they pray, by the valour of our arms, and the edge of our swords; living under no other cover than the cope of heaven, set up in a manner as marks for the intolerable heat of the sun in summer, and the chilling breath of frosty winter: we are therefore God's ministers, and