The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

  “So it was Monsieur D’Artagnan the gentleman sought to fight with?”

  “So it would seem, Monsieur.”

  “Can you tell me what has become of this Monsieur D’Artagnan?”

  “No, Monsieur, I never saw him before and I have not seen him since.”

  “Good, I know what I want. You told me Monsieur Porthos was—”

  “—One flight up, Monsieur. Room Number One, the best in the house. I could have rented it ten times over.”

  “Pray don’t worry, my dear host!” D’Artagnan laughed. “Monsieur Porthos will pay you with funds furnished by Madame la Duchesse de Coquenard.”

  “Duchess or lawyer’s wife, Monsieur, let her but draw her purse-strings and I shall be delighted. But you see, Monsieur, between you and me, she seemed to be fed up with the demands Monsieur Porthos made upon her and with his infidelities. She swore she wouldn’t send him a sou.”

  “Did you give your guest this message?”

  “We were very careful to do nothing of the kind, Monsieur, because he would have found out how we delivered the letter.”

  “So he still expects the money?”

  “Why, yes, Monsieur. Just yesterday he wrote again, but this time his lackey posted the letter.”

  “And the Duchess—I mean Madame la Procureuse—the lawyer’s wife—is old and ugly?”

  “At least fifty years old, Monsieur, and my man Pathaud reported that she was no pleasure to behold!”

  “Never mind, landlord, the uglier she is, the more generous she will be. Besides, Monsieur Porthos can’t owe you so very much.”

  “Well, no, Monsieur, not very much: just a matter of twenty pistoles so far, not counting the doctor. Oh no! Monsieur Porthos is a very generous man; he denies himself nothing. I can see he is used to lordly living.”

  “Well, my dear host, if his mistress forsakes him, I’m sure he will not lack friends. Cheer up, take things in your stride, and pray continue to treat him with all the courtesy his situation demands.”

  “Monsieur promised me not to breathe a word about the lawyerling duchess, eh? Monsieur will not betray my confidence in regard to the wound?”

  “I have given you my word!”

  “You see, Monsieur, if he knew I had told you, he would kill me!”

  “Rest easy, my dear landlord; Monsieur Porthos is not so fierce or diabolic as he would have you believe.”

  With which D’Artagnan nodded to the host and climbed the stairs, leaving the good man somewhat more cheerful about two things he seemed to value very much—the money owed him and his life. At the top of the stairs, he saw a monstrously conspicuous door, with, over the panel, a gigantic sign, traced in black ink, reading Number One. D’Artagnan, knocking, was summoned to enter. He was greeted with a hilarious spectacle.

  Porthos lay back in bed in sumptuous comfort; he was playing lansquenet with Mousqueton, just to keep his hand in. A spit loaded with partridges was turning gaily before the fire; at either side of the spacious chimney piece, on twin andirons, stood two chafing dishes over which two boiling stewpans exhaled the most fragrant odor of gibelotte—fricassee of hare—and matelotte—a fish stew with prevailing flavors of wine, onions and herbs. The top of a writing desk and the marble cover of a chest of drawers loomed aglitter with empty bottles.

  Seeing his friend, Porthos cried out with joy:

  “D’Artagnan? You? I can scarcely believe my eyes! By God, you are welcome, my dear fellow. Forgive me for not rising to greet you.” Then with a certain degree of embarrassment, Porthos added: “Have you heard about me?”

  “No!”

  “You haven’t talked to the landlord?”

  “No, Porthos, he told me where to find you and up I came.”

  Porthos heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Tell me all about yourself, Porthos?” D’Artagnan asked.

  “Ah, it’s a sorry story,” Porthos sighed. “You left me here fighting against a stranger … I had dealt him three neat thrusts … I was about to settle him with a fourth … and, guess what happened?”

  “What?”

  “I tripped on a stone and sprained my knee.”

  “What dreadful luck!”

  “Ay, my friend, it’s God’s truth! Happily for the cad I was fighting, I couldn’t dispatch him. He had enough of it and took to his heels.… And you, D’Artagnan?”

  “I am quite well, as you see. But tell me about your knee? It keeps you abed, I dare say.”

  “Yes, my friend, it’s an infernal nuisance, but in a few days, I shall be up and about!”

  “Why didn’t you go back to Paris, Porthos? You must find it terribly boring here?”

  “I wanted to go back to Paris. It is boring here, too, but I must confess—”

  “What?”

  “Well, as you may judge, I was terribly bored here. And I had the seventy-five pistoles you lent me. So I gambled with a gentleman who happened to be staying here overnight; I invited him up for a game of dice. He accepted and very swiftly transferred your seventy-five pistoles from my pocket to his, not to mention my horse, which I lost to him in a last, desperate effort to recoup. But enough of my woes, my dear D’Artagnan, tell me about yourself.”

  “Well my friend, you know the old proverb: Unlucky at play, lucky in love. You are too happy in your amours not to suffer an occasional reverse in dicing. After all you’re a very fortunate fellow! Surely your duchess will not fail but come to your rescue.”

  “To tell you the truth, my friend, I’ve had a spot of bad luck in that direction,” Porthos confessed in the most careless and airy tone imaginable. “I did write to her to send me some fifty louis or so which I needed very much, because as you know I was in a tight spot—”

  “And—?”

  “—and I can only conclude that the Duchess must have been away in the country because I received no answer—”

  “Well, well!”

  “Having heard nothing from her, I sent her a second letter yesterday. I explained that matters were even more urgent than I had said in letter Number One. But you my friend, what about you? I must confess that, confined to my bed as I was, I felt very anxious about you.”

  “Oh, I’ve been very well. But your landlord, my dear Porthos,” D’Artagnan pointed to the full saucepans and empty bottles, “your landlord seems to be doing his share, eh?”

  “The host is doing an indifferent job, my friend, his treatment of us has been so-so. Four days ago he had the cheek to present his bill and I had to toss both him and the document out of the door of my apartment. This made me a victor of sorts and a conqueror, if you like; but as you see, I am in constant fear of being stormed out of my stronghold and I have perforce to remain armed to the teeth night and day.”

  D’Artagnan laughed jovially as he asked: “Don’t you sally forth occasionally, my friend?” And once again he surveyed the empty bottles and the fragrant saucepans.

  “Not I, alas,” Porthos vouchsafed. “As you see, my wretched knee nails me to my bed. But Mousqueton does an occasional job of foraging and so we do not lack for provisions.” Porthos turned to his lackey: “Mousqueton, as you see, we have reinforcements; you must produce rations for Monsieur D’Artagnan who is doubtless both hungry and thirsty.”

  “Mousqueton, a favor, I beg you?”

  “Yes, Monsieur.”

  “Pray tell Planchet how you go about foraging; your recipe would be invaluable to him. I may be besieged and beleaguered at any time, just as Monsieur Porthos has been; and if this happened, I would welcome attentions from Planchet such as those you lavish on your master.”

  Mousqueton stared modestly at the ground.

  “It’s no trick, Monsieur,” he said, “all you need is to be nimble and spry. I happen to have been brought up in the country and my father in his leisure moments used to do a bit of poaching now and again—”

  “What did he do when he worked?”

  “He toiled at a job I have always thought a very prosperous one.”


  “Namely?”

  Mousqueton fetched up a deep sigh and told the heroic story of his father. It was at the time of the Wars of Religion; Catholics and Huguenots were vying with one another in violence. Monsieur Mousqueton père watched the Catholics exterminating the Huguenots and vice-versa all in the name of God. He evolved and compounded a mixed belief which permitted him now to be Catholic, now Protestant.

  He was accustomed to strolling behind the hedges that border the roads, his blunderbuss over his shoulder. His activity was at once limited and unlimited by the choice between two positions. If he passed a Catholic, the Protestant religion immediately prevailed in his mind; he would lower his gun and, when he was within ten paces of the stranger, he would engage in a conversation which invariably resulted in the stranger’s parting with his purse in order to save his life. If, on the other hand, he came upon a Protestant, in all fairness to Monsieur Mousqueton père, his son was compelled to admit that his sire was so overcome with a fervor of Catholic zeal that he found it difficult to conceive how he had attacked a follower of the Mother Church just a few moments before.

  “My father was a stout believer in the superiority of our Holy Catholic faith,” Mousqueton added sententiously. “And I myself am a devout practiser. But faithful to his all-embracing principles, he made my older brother a Huguenot.”

  “What happened to your worthy father?” D’Artagnan inquired. And volubly Mousqueton related that the fate of this worthy and eclectic citizen had been unfortunate indeed. One day he was caught in a sunken road between a Catholic and a Huguenot with whom he had had previous dealings; they both recognized him, joined forces and hung him to a tree. Mousqueton, the good Catholic, and his brother, the good Protestant, happened to be drinking in the village inn when the two assassins ordered a magnum of wine and boasted of their dastardly exploit.

  “What did you do, my lad?” D’Artagnan asked.

  “We let them talk, Monsieur, and they had their story out, talking a bellyful. Then my brother and I parted; he went north to wait for the Catholic, I south to wait for the Huguenot. Two hours later the situation was well in hand; we had settled both of them in wonder, gratitude and tribute at our father’s foresight for bringing us up in different faiths.”

  “Your father must have been a most intelligent fellow, Mousqueton. Tell me something about the poaching he did in his leisure moments.”

  “Monsieur, he was marvelously skilled in poaching. It was he taught me first how to lay a snare and to ground a line. He was a past master, Monsieur, and I an apt pupil. So you can understand that when I found our shabby host serving us up lumps of meat fit for clodhoppers, I decided to do something about our delicate stomachs; Monsieur Porthos and I are not used to eating poorly! So I went back to poaching, Monsieur. As I strolled in the woods of Monsieur le Prince de Condé, I set a snare here and there in the runs; and as I reclined on the banks bordering His Royal Highness’s waters, I slipped a line or two into his fishponds. Wherefore, praise God! we lack for no partridge or hare or carp or eel, as Monsieur will presently witness. These are light healthy foods, Monsieur, specially indicated for persons who are sick or recuperating from arduous duties.”

  “But the wine, Mousqueton? Does your host furnish it?”

  “Well, Monsieur, yes he does and no he doesn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He furnishes our wine, yes; but no, he is not aware he has that honor.”

  “Come, come, Mousqueton, explain yourself. Your conversation opens up vistas that deserve elucidation.”

  “Well, here’s the story, Monsieur. By chance in the course of my fairly wide travels, I once met a Spaniard, Monsieur, who had been in many a country and seen the New World too.”

  “What in Heaven’s name has the New World to do with the empty bottles on that desk and on that chest of drawers?”

  “Patience, Monsieur, I beg you; I will tell you all in good time.”

  “Right, Mousqueton, proceed; I am all ears.”

  Mousqueton thereupon related that the Spaniard in question had a lackey who had accompanied him on a voyage to Mexico. The lackey was a compatriot of Mousqueton and a lively intimacy grew up between them because they had much in common. They both loved hunting, particularly, and Mousqueton’s friend used to tell him how in the plains of the pampas the natives hunt the tiger and wild bull with what they call lassos—just simple running nooses with which they down the fiercest animals. At first Mousqueton was skeptical because he could not imagine how even a heathen could toss the end of a rope a distance of thirty paces with such deadly accuracy Nevertheless Mousqueton’s colleague proved his point.

  “And this is how, Monsieur: he placed a bottle thirty paces away and each time he cast his rope he caught the neck of the bottle in his running noose. He was as good a teacher as my father and I as ready a pupil and, since Nature has endowed me with certain aptitudes, today I can toss a lasso as accurately as any man in the world.”

  D’Artagnan shrugged his shoulders and urged Mousqueton to come to the point.

  “Ah, the point, Monsieur? Well, you see our host has a very respectably stocked cellar but he insists on wearing the keys on his person. But fortunately the cellar boasts a loophole; I cast my lasso through this loophole and, as I know where the best wines stand, I direct my lasso in that quarter.”

  Mousqueton bowed modestly, adding:

  “Now Monsieur understands the relation between the New World and the bottles which now grace our desk and our chest of drawers. Perhaps Monsieur would care to sample one of our bottles and tell us quite frankly what he thinks of our wares.”

  “Thank you, Mousqueton, unfortunately I have just breakfasted.”

  “Well, Mousqueton, lay the table and while you and I breakfast, Monsieur D’Artagnan can tell us what he has been doing these last ten days.”

  “Willingly,” D’Artagnan said. And whilst Porthos and Mousqueton ate with the appetites of convalescents and with that brotherly cordiality which unties men in times of adversity, D’Artagnan told how Aramis, wounded, had remained at Crévecoeur … how Athos, accused of counterfeiting, had been left fighting off four men at Amiens … and how he, D’Artagnan, had been forced to run the Comte de Vardes through the body in order to reach England.… There D’Artagnan’s confidences stopped; he merely added that on his return from England he brought back four magnificent horses, one for himself and one for each of his comrades, and that the one destined for Porthos was stabled in the inn.…

  At that moment Planchet entered to inform his master that the horses were sufficiently refreshed and that they could all reach Clermont that night. Since D’Artagnan was tolerably reassured about Porthos and very anxious to obtain news of Aramis and Athos, he shook hands with the portly convalescent, telling him what he meant to do. Probably he would be returning through Chantilly; he therefore proposed to call for Porthos on the way if Porthos were still at the Hostelry of the Grand Saint-Martin.

  Porthos replied that in all probability his knee would not permit him to leave yet a while; besides, he must stay at Chantilly to await the reply from his duchess.

  “May the reply be prompt and favorable,” our Gascon said and, recommending Porthos to Mousqueton, he settled the musketeer’s debt to the inn. Then, with Planchet relieved of one horse, he rode off toward Crèvecoeur.…

  XXVI

  OF ARAMIS AND HIS THESIS

  D’Artagnan had said nothing to Porthos about his wound or about his precious duchess. Our young man from Béarn was young, to be sure, but he was wise and prudent beyond his years. He had therefore pretended to believe all the vainglorious musketeer had told him, for he was convinced that no friendship can stand the strain of a secret discovered, particularly when that secret involves a man’s pride. Again, a man always enjoys a certain feeling of mental superiority over those whose lives he knows better than they suspect. Further, D’Artagnan planned other intrigues for the future and was resolved that his three friends could be instrumental i
n making his fortune for him; he therefore was not at all sorry to grasp beforehand the invisible strings by which he hoped to move them.

  Yet as he journeyed onward a profound melancholy weighed heavily upon his heart. He thought of the young and pretty Madame Bonacieux who was to have given him the reward of his devotion; but in all justice to him it must be confessed that his sorrow rose less from regret at the happiness he had missed than from his fear that some misfortune had befallen the poor woman. In his opinion there was no doubt she had become a victim of the Cardinal’s vengeance, and as everyone knew, the Cardinal’s vengeance was a terrible thing. How D’Artagnan himself could have found favor in the minister’s eyes was a complete mystery to him; doubtless Monsieur de Cavois would have revealed this to him had D’Artagnan been at home when the Captain of the Cardinal’s guards called upon him.

  Now nothing makes time pass more quickly and shortens a journey more effectively than thoughts which absorb the thinker’s every faculty. External existence seems to resemble a deep slumber of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence time becomes measureless and space loses all distance. We leave our place and arrive at another—that is all; of the interval between places nothing remains in the memory save a vague mist in which a myriad confused images of trees, mountains and landscapes are blurred beyond recognition. A prey to such an hallucination D’Artagnan covered the eight leagues between Chantilly and Crèvecoeur at whatever gait his horse chose to adopt; of what he had seen on the road, he remembered nothing. It was not until he glimpsed the inn where he had left Aramis that he came to, and shaking his head, brought his horse up to the door at a trot.