"I thought I had told you that I had faith in your loyalty and discretion."
"No doubt, no doubt, but you must remember one thing--"
"What is that?"
"That I was not alone, that I had companions; and what companions!"
"Oh! yes, I know them."
"And, unfortunately, my lord, they know you, too!"
"Well?"
"Well; they are yonder, at Boulogne, waiting for me."
"And you fear--"
"Yes, I fear that in my absence--Parbleu! If I were near them, I could answer for their silence."
"Was I not right in saying that the danger, if there was any danger, would not come from his majesty, however disposed he may be to jest, but from your companions, as you say? To be laughed at by a king may be tolerable, but by the horse-boys and scamps of the army! d.a.m.n it!"
"Yes, I understand, that would be unbearable; that is why, my lord, I came to say,--do you not think it would be better for me to set out for France as soon as possible?"
"Certainly, if you think your presence--"
"Would impose silence upon those scoundrels? Oh! I am sure of that, my lord."
"Your presence will not prevent the report from spreading, if the tale has already transpired."
"Oh! it has not transpired, my lord, I will wager. At all events, be a.s.sured that I am determined upon one thing."
"What is that?"
"To blow out the brains of the first who shall have propagated that report, and of the first who has heard it. After which I shall return to England to seek an asylum, and perhaps employment with your grace."
"Oh, come back! come back!"
"Unfortunately, my lord, I am acquainted with n.o.body here but your grace, and if I should no longer find you, or if you should have forgotten me in your greatness?"
"Listen to me, Monsieur d"Artagnan," replied Monk; "you are a superior man, full of intelligence and courage; you deserve all the good fortune this world can bring you; come with me into Scotland, and, I swear to you, I shall arrange for you a fate which all may envy."
"Oh! my lord, that is impossible. At present I have a sacred duty to perform; I have to watch over your glory, I have to prevent a low jester from tarnishing in the eyes of our contemporaries--who knows? in the eyes of posterity--the splendor of your name."
"Of posterity, Monsieur d"Artagnan?"
"Doubtless. It is necessary, as regards posterity, that all the details of that history should remain a mystery; for, admit that this unfortunate history of the deal box should spread, and it should be a.s.serted that you had not re-established the king loyally, and of your own free will, but in consequence of a compromise entered into at Scheveningen between you two. It would be vain for me to declare how the thing came about, for though I know I should not be believed, it would be said that I had received my part of the cake, and was eating it."
Monk knitted his brow.--"Glory, honor, probity!" said he, "you are but empty words."
"Mist!" replied D"Artagnan; "nothing but mist, through which n.o.body can see clearly."
"Well, then, go to France, my dear Monsieur d"Artagnan," said Monk; "go, and to render England more attractive and agreeable to you, accept a remembrance of me."
"What now?" thought D"Artagnan.
"I have on the banks of the Clyde," continued Monk, "a little house in a grove, cottage as it is called here. To this house are attached a hundred acres of land. Accept it as a souvenir."
"Oh, my lord!--"
"Faith! you will be there in your own home, and that will be the place of refuge you spoke of just now."
"For me to be obliged to your lordship to such an extent! Really, your grace, I am ashamed."
"Not at all, not at all, monsieur," replied Monk, with an arch smile; "it is I who shall be obliged to you. And," pressing the hand of the musketeer, "I shall go and draw up the deed of gift,"--and he left the room.
D"Artagnan looked at him as he went out with something of a pensive and even an agitated air.
"After all," said he, "he is a brave man. It is only a sad reflection that it is from fear of me, and not affection that he acts thus. Well, I shall endeavor that affection may follow." Then, after an instant"s deeper reflection,--"Bah!" said he, "to what purpose? He is an Englishman." And he in turn went out, a little confused after the combat.
"So," said he, "I am a land-owner! But how the devil am I to share the cottage with Planchet? Unless I give him the land, and I take the chateau, or the he takes the house and I--nonsense! M. Monk will never allow me to share a house he has inhabited, with a grocer. He is too proud for that. Besides, why should I say anything about it to him? It was not with the money of the company I have acquired that property, it was with my mother-wit alone; it is all mine, then. So, now I will go and find Athos." And he directed his steps towards the dwelling of the Comte de la Fere.
Chapter x.x.xVII. How D"Artagnan regulated the "a.s.sets" of the Company."
Decidedly," said D"Artagnan to himself, "I have struck a good vein. That star which shines once in the life of every man, which shone for Job and Iris, the most unfortunate of the Jews and the poorest of the Greeks, is come at last to shine on me. I will commit no folly, I will take advantage of it; it comes quite late enough to find me reasonable."
He supped that evening, in very good humor, with his friend Athos; he said nothing to him about the expected donation, but he could not forbear questioning his friend, while eating, about country produce, sowing, and planting. Athos replied complacently, as he always did. His idea was that D"Artagnan wished to become a land-owner, only he could not help regretting, more than once, the absence of the lively humor and amusing sallies of the cheerful companion of former days. In fact, D"Artagnan was so absorbed, that, with his knife, he took advantage of the grease left at the bottom of his plate, to trace ciphers and make additions of surprising rotundity.
The order, or rather license, for their embarkation, arrived at Athos"s lodgings that evening. While this paper was remitted to the comte, another messenger brought to D"Artagnan a little bundle of parchments, adorned with all the seals employed in setting off property deeds in England. Athos surprised him turning over the leaves of these different acts which established the transmission of property. The prudent Monk--others would say the generous Monk--had commuted the donation into a sale, and acknowledged the receipt of the sum of fifteen thousand crowns as the price of the property ceded. The messenger was gone.
D"Artagnan still continued reading, Athos watched him with a smile.
D"Artagnan, surprising one of those smiles over his shoulder, put the bundle in its wrapper.
"I beg your pardon," said Athos.
"Oh! not at all, my friend," replied the lieutenant, "I shall tell you--"
"No, don"t tell me anything, I beg you; orders are things so sacred, that to one"s brother, one"s father, the person charged with such orders should never open his mouth. Thus I, who speak to you, and love you more tenderly than brother, father, or all the world--"
"Except your Raoul?"
"I shall love Raoul still better when he shall be a man, and I shall have seen him develop himself in all the phases of his character and his actions--as I have seen you, my friend."
"You said, then, that you had an order likewise, and that you would not communicate it to me."
"Yes, my dear D"Artagnan."