The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [133]
“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