Don Quixote of La Mancha - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1858. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... trembling with rage, caught the archer by the throat as well as he could with both hands, and, had he not been rescued by his comrades, he had lost his life before Don Quixote had loosed his hold. The inn-keeper, who was bound to aid and assist his brethren in office, ran immediately to his assistance. The hostess, seeing her husband again engaged in battle, raised her voice anew, and her daughter and Maritornes joined in the same tune, praying aid from Heaven and from the bystanders. Sancho, seeing what passed, said: " As God shall save roe, my master says true concerning the enchantments of this castle, for it is impossible to live an hour in quiet in it." At length Don Fernando parted the archer and Don Quixote, and, to both their contents, unlocked their hands from the doublet collar of the one, and from the windpipe of the other. Nevertheless, the four archers did not desist from demanding their prisoner, and to have him bound and delivered up to them, for so the king's service, and that of the holy hermandad, required, in whose name they again demanded help and assistance in apprehending that common robber, footpad, and highwayman. Don Quixote smiled to hear these expressions, and, with great calmness, said: " Come hither, base and ill-born crew. Call ye it robbing on the highway to loose the chains of the captived, to set the imprisoned free, to succour the miserable, to raise the fallen and cast down, and to relieve the needy and distressed! Ah, scoundrel race! undeserving, by the meanness and baseness of your understandings, that Heaven should reveal to you the worth inherent in knight-errantry, or make you sensible of your own sin and ignorance in not reverencing the very shadow, and much more the presence, of any knight-errant whatever! Come hither, y...