Now whilst the curate and the barber were in the inn they discussed together the best means of bringing Don Quixote back to his home, and the curate hit upon a plan which fitted in well with Don Quixote’s humour and seemed likely to be successful. This plan was, as he told the barber, to dress himself like a wandering damsel, while the barber took the part of her squire, and in this disguise they were to go to where Don Quixote was undergoing his penance. The curate, pretending that he was an afflicted and sorely distressed damsel, was to demand of him a boon, which as a valiant knight errant he could not refuse.

The service which the damsel was to ask was that Don Quixote would follow her where she should lead him, to right a wrong which some wicked knight had done her. Besides this, she was to pray him not to command her to unveil herself or inquire as to her condition until he had done her right against the wicked knight. And thus they hoped to lead Don Quixote back to his own village, and afterwards to cure him of his mad ideas.

The curate’s notion pleased the barber well, and they resolved to carry it out. They borrowed from the innkeeper’s wife a gown and a head-dress, leaving with her in exchange the curate’s new cassock. The barber made for himself a great beard of a red ox’s tail in which the innkeeper used to hang his horse-comb. The innkeeper’s wife asked them what they wanted these things for, and the curate told her shortly all about Don Quixote’s madness and how this disguise was necessary to bring him away from the mountains where he had taken up his abode.

The innkeeper and his wife then remembered all about their strange guest, and told the barber and the curate all about him and his balsam and how Sancho had fared with the blanket. Then the innkeeper’s wife dressed up the curate so cleverly that it could not have been better done. She attired him in a stuff gown with bands of black velvet several inches broad, and a bodice and sleeves of green velvet trimmed with white satin, both of which might have been made in the days of the Flood. The curate would not consent to wear a headdress like a woman’s but put on a white quilted linen nightcap, which he carried to sleep in. Then with two strips of black stuff he made himself a mask and fixed it on, and this covered his face and beard very neatly. He then put on his large hat and, wrapping himself in his cloak, seated himself like a woman sideways on his mule, whilst the barber mounted his, with a beard reaching down to his girdle, made from a red ox’s tail.

They now took their leave, and all at the inn wished them a good success, but they had not gone very far when the curate began to dread that he was not doing right in dressing up as a woman and gadding about in such a costume, even on so good an errand. He therefore proposed to the barber that he should be the distressed damsel, and the curate would take the part of the squire, teaching him what to say and how to behave. Sancho now came up to them and, seeing them in their strange dresses, could not contain his laughter.

The curate soon threw off his disguise, and the barber did the same, and both resolved not to dress up any more until they should come nearer to Don Quixote, when the barber should be the distressed damsel and the curate should be the squire. Then they pursued their journey towards the Brown Mountains, guided by Sancho, to whom they explained that it was necessary that his master should be led away from his penance if he was ever to become an emperor and be in a position to give Sancho his desired island.

The End