ll more, if you were
condemned to the lash or to jail for it, I should pity you and would not
allow people to speak ill of you. And yet, monsieur, honest man as you
may be, I assure you that you are not more so than poor M. Fouquet was."

After having undergone this sharp rebuke, the keeper of the harriers
hung his head, and allowed the falconer to get two steps in advance of
him nearer to D'Artagnan.

"He is content," said the falconer, in a low voice, to the musketeer;
"we all know that harriers are in fashion nowadays; if he were a
falconer he would not talk in that way."

D'Artagnan smiled in a melancholy manner at seeing this great political
question resolved by the discontent of such humble interest. He for a
moment ran over in his mind the glorious existence of the surintendant,
the crumbling of his fortunes, and the melancholy death that awaited
him; and to conclude, "Did M. Fouquet love falconry?" said he.

"Oh, passionately, monsieur!" repeated the falconer, with an accent of
bitter regret and a sigh that was the funeral oration of Fouquet.

D'Artagnan allowed the ill-humor of the one and the regret of the other
to pass, and continued to advance. They could already catch glimpses
of the huntsmen at the issue of the wood, the feathers of the outriders
passing like shooting stars across the clearings, and the white horses
skirting the bosky thickets looking like illuminated apparitions.

"But," resumed D'Artagnan, "will the sport last long? Pray, give us a
good swift bird, for I am very tired. Is it a heron or a swan?"

"Both, Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the falconer; "but you need not be
alarmed; the king is not much of a sportsman; he does not take the field
on his own account, he only wishes to amuse the ladies."

The words "to amuse the ladies" were so strongly accented they set
D'Artagnan thinking.

"Ah!" said he, looking keenly at the falconer.

The keeper of the harriers smiled, no doubt with a view of making it up
with the musketeer.

"Oh! you may safely laugh," said D'Artagnan; "I know nothing of current
news; I only arrived yesterday, after a month's absence. I left the
court mourning the death of the queen-mother. The king was not willing
to take any amusement after receiving the last sigh of Anne of Austria;
but everything comes to an end in this world. Well! then he is no longer
sad? So much the better." [8]

"And everything begins as well as ends," said the keeper with a coarse
laugh.