“Oh! it has not transpired, my lord, I will wager. At all events, be assured 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 nobody 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 Monck; “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 asserted that you had not reestablished 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.”
Monck knitted his brow.—“Glory, honor, probity!” said he, “you are but empty words.”
“Mist!” replied d’Artagnan; “nothing but mist, through which nobody can see clearly.”
“Well, then, go to France, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Monck; “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 Monck, “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 Monck, 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 landowner! But how the devil am I to share the cottage with Planchet? Unless I give him the land, and I take the château, or that he takes the house and I—nonsense! M. Monck 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 Fère.
37
How d’Artagnan Regulated the “Assets” of the Company Before He Established Its “Liabilities”
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 landowner, 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 establish the transmission of property. The prudent Monck—others would say the generous Monck—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
