CHAPTER XXX.

OF DON QUIXOTE'S ADVENTURE WITH A FAIR HUNTRESS


They reached their beasts in low spirits and bad humour enough, knight
and squire, Sancho particularly, for with him what touched the stock of
money touched his heart, and when any was taken from him he felt as if he
was robbed of the apples of his eyes. In fine, without exchanging a word,
they mounted and quitted the famous river, Don Quixote absorbed in
thoughts of his love, Sancho in thinking of his advancement, which just
then, it seemed to him, he was very far from securing; for, fool as he
was, he saw clearly enough that his master's acts were all or most of
them utterly senseless; and he began to cast about for an opportunity of
retiring from his service and going home some day, without entering into
any explanations or taking any farewell of him. Fortune, however, ordered
matters after a fashion very much the opposite of what he contemplated.

It so happened that the next day towards sunset, on coming out of a wood,
Don Quixote cast his eyes over a green meadow, and at the far end of it
observed some people, and as he drew nearer saw that it was a hawking
party. Coming closer, he distinguished among them a lady of graceful
mien, on a pure white palfrey or hackney caparisoned with green trappings
and a silver-mounted side-saddle. The lady was also in green, and so
richly and splendidly dressed that splendour itself seemed personified in
her. On her left hand she bore a hawk, a proof to Don Quixote's mind that
she must be some great lady and the mistress of the whole hunting party,