“Let us hear what the whole affair is about,” said the Judge at this; but the man, who knew him as a neighbour of theirs, replied, “Do you not know this gentleman, Señor Judge? He is the son of your neighbour, who has run away from his father’s house in a dress so unbecoming his rank, as your worship may perceive.”
The judge on this looked at him more carefully and recognised him, and embracing him said, “What folly is this, Señor Don Luis, or what can have been the cause that could have induced you to come here in this way, and in this dress, which so ill becomes your condition?”
Tears came into the eyes of the young man, and he was unable to utter a word in reply to the Judge, who told the four servants not to be uneasy, for all would be satisfactorily settled; and then taking Don Luis by the hand, he drew him aside and asked the reason of his having come there.
But while he was questioning him they heard a loud outcry at the gate of the inn, the cause of which was that two of the guests who had passed the night there, seeing everybody busy about finding out what it was the four men wanted, had conceived the idea of going off without paying what they owed; but the landlord, who minded his own affairs more than other people’s, caught them going out of the gate and demanded his reckoning, abusing them for their dishonesty with such language that he drove them to reply with their fists, and so they began to lay on him in such a style that the poor man was forced to cry out, and call for help. The landlady and her daughter could see no one more free to give aid than Don Quixote, and to him the daughter said, “Sir knight, by the virtue God has given you, help my poor father, for two wicked men are beating him to a mummy.”