DON QUIXOTE

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them said; and as soon as they were gone they both of them came in to Don
Quixote, and said the niece, "What's this, uncle? Now that we were
thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectable
life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn
'young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?' Nay!
indeed 'the straw is too hard now to make pipes of.'"

"And," added the housekeeper, "will your worship be able to bear, out in
the fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter, and the
howling of the wolves? Not you; for that's a life and a business for
hardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from the time they were
in swaddling-clothes. Why, to make choice of evils, it's better to be a
knight-errant than a shepherd! Look here, senor; take my advice--and I'm
not giving it to you full of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fifty
years upon my head--stay at home, look after your affairs, go often to
confession, be good to the poor, and upon my soul be it if any evil comes
to you."