in it, I shall have now no pretense to an excuse, no darkness, no unknown sounds, to impute my disappointment to:  in short, in all probability yonder comes the man who wears on his head Mambrino’s helmet, and thou knowest the vow I have made.”—­“Good sir,” quoth Sancho, “mind what you say, and take heed what you do; for I would willingly keep my carcass and the case of my understanding from being pounded, mashed, and crushed with fulling hammers.”—­“The block-head!” cried Don Quixote; “is there no difference between a helmet and a fulling mill?”—­“I don’t know,” saith Sancho, “but I am sure, were I suffered to speak my mind now as I was wont, mayhap, I would give you such main reasons, that yourself should see you are wide of the matter.”—­“How can I be mistaken, thou eternal misbeliever!” cried Don Quixote; “dost thou not see that knight that comes riding up directly towards us upon a dapple-gray steed, with a helmet of gold on his head.”—­“I see what I see,” replied Sancho, “and the devil of anything I can spy but a fellow on such another gray ass as mine is, with something that glitters o’ top of his head.”—­“I tell thee, that is Mambrino’s helmet,” replied Don Quixote; “do thou stand at a distance, and leave me to deal with him; thou shalt see, that without trifling away so much as a moment in needless talk, I will finish this adventure, and possess myself of the desired helmet.”—­“I shall stand at a distance, you may be sure,” quoth Sancho; “but God grant that it be not the fulling mills again.”—­“I have warned you already, fellow,” said Don Quixote, “not so much as to name the fulling mills; dare but once more to do it, nay, but to think on it, and I vow to—­I say no more, but I’ll full your very soul.”  These threats were more than sufficient to padlock Sancho’s lips, for he had no mind to have his master’s vow fulfilled at the expense of his bones.

Now the truth of the story was this:  there were in that part of the country two villages, one of which was so little that it had not so much as a shop in it, nor any barber; so that the barber of the greater village served also the smaller.  And thus a person happening to have occasion to be let blood, and another to be shaved, the barber was going thither with his brass basin, which he had clapped upon his head to keep his hat, that chanced to be a new one, from being spoiled by the rain; and as the basin was new scoured, it made a glittering show a great way off.  As Sancho had well observed, he rode upon a gray ass, which Don Quixote as easily took for a dapple-gray steed, as he took the barber for a knight, and his brass basin for a golden helmet; his distracted brain easily applying every object to his romantic ideas.  Therefore, when he saw the poor imaginary knight draw near, he fixed his lance, or javelin, to his thigh, and without staying to hold a parley with his adversary, flew at him as fiercely as Rozinante would gallop, resolved to pierce him through and through; crying out in the midst of his career, “Caitiff, wretch, defend thyself, or immediately surrender that which is so justly my due.”