Note 48 — Introductory material

Riding as a Squire of Dames was occasionally a service of some danger. The long hair-pins which the ladies wore in their capillary towers were, as it appears from the following story, “as sharp as any swords.” “Pardon me, good signor Don Quixote,” says the duenna Donna Rodriguez to that unrivalled knight, “but as often as I call to mind my unhappy spouse, my eyes are brim-full. With what stateliness did he use to carry my lady behind him on a puissant mule, for in those days coaches and side-saddles were not in fashion, and the ladies rode behind their squires. On a certain day, at the entrance into St. James’s Street in Madrid, which is very narrow, a judge of one of the courts happened to be coming out with two of his officers, and as soon as my good squire saw him—so well-bred and punctilious was my husband—he turned his mule about, as if he designed to wait upon him home. My lady, who was behind him, said to him in a low voice, ‘What are you doing, blockhead? am I not here?’ The Judge civilly stopped his horse and said, ‘Keep on your way, Sir, for it is my business rather to wait on my lady Donna Casilda.’ My husband persisted, cap in hand, in his intention to wait upon the Judge, which my lady perceiving, full of choler and indignation, she pulled out a great pin and stuck it into his back; whereupon my husband bawled out, and, writhing his body, down he came with his lady to the ground. My mistress was forced to walk home on foot, and my husband went to a barber-surgeon’s, telling him he was run quite through and through the bowels. But because of this, and also because he was a little short-sighted, my lady turned him away; the grief whereof, I believe, verily was the death of him.”