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_From Captain Dugald Dalgetty_, _of Drumthwacket_, _to the Most Noble and
Puissant Prince James_, _Earl of Montrose_, _commanding the musters of
the King in Scotland_. _These_—
MY LORD,—As touching the bruit, or _fama_, as we said at the Mareschal
College, I shall forthwith answer, and that _peremptorie_. For this
story of the _duello_, as a man may say (though, indeed, they that fought
in it were not in the dual number, as your Grecian hath it, but eight
soldados—seven of them gallant men), truly the story is of the longest;
but as your lordship will have it, though more expert with the sword than
the goosequill, I must even buckle to.
Let your lordship conceive of your poor officer, once lieutenant and
Rittmaster under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant
faith, Gustavus the Victorious; conceive, I say, Dugald Dalgetty, of
Drumthwacket that should be, in Paris, concerned with a matter of weight
and moment not necessary to be mooted or minted of. As I am sitting at
my tavern ordinary, for I consider that an experienced cavalier should
ever lay in provenant as occasion serveth, comes in to me a stipendiary
of my Lord Winter, bidding me know that his master would speak to me: and
that not _coram populo_, as I doubt not your lordship said at St.
Leonard’s College in St. Andrews, but privily. Thereon I rise and wait
on him; to be brief—_brevis esse laboro_, as we said lang syne—his
lordship would have me to be of his backers in private rencontre with
four gentlemen of the King’s Musketeers.
Concerning the cause of this duello, I may well say _teterrima causa_.
His lordship’s own sister Milady Clarik was in question; she being, I
fear me, rather akin in her way of life to Jean Drocheils (whom your
lordship may remember; for, the Baillies expulsing her from Aberdeen, she
migrated to St. Andrews, _ad eundem_, as the saying is) than like, in her
walk and conduct, to a virtuous lady of a noble family. She was, indeed,
as current rumour had it, the light o’love or _belle amie_ of Monsieur
d’Artagnan, his lordship’s adversary.
But of siclike least said soonest mended. I take cloak and sword, and
follow with his lordship and two other experienced cavaliers unto the
place of rencontre, being a waste croft whereon a loon was herding goats,
behind the Palace of the Luxembourg. Here we find waiting us four
soldados, proper tall men of their hands, who receive us courteously. He
that first gave cause of quarrel to my Lord Winter bore a worthy name
enough out of Gascony, that is _arida nutrix_, as we said at the
Mareschal College, of honourable soldados—to wit, as I said, he was
Monsieur d’Artagnan. To his friends, howbeit, he gave sic heathen titles
as I never saw or heard of out of the Grecian books: namely, Monsieur
Porthos, a very tall man, albeit something of a _lourdaud_; Monsieur
Athos; and he that was to be mine own opposite, Monsieur Aramis. Hearing
these outlandish and insolent appellations, I thought it becoming me, as
an honourable cavalier, to resent this fashion of presenting: and
demurred that a gentleman of the House of Dalgetty of Drumthwacket could
neither take affront from, nor give honourable satisfaction to, a
nameless landlouper. Wherein your lordship, I doubt me not, will hold me
justificate.
Lord Winter homologating mine opinion, he that called himself Athos drew
each of us apart, and whispered the true names and qualities territorial
of these gentlemen; the whilk, as may befall honourable soldados, they
had reason sufficient to conceal while serving as private gentlemen in a
regiment, though disdaining to receive halberds, as unbecoming their
birth. He that aligned himself forenenst me was styled the Chevalier
d’Herblay; and, the word being given, we fell to.
Now, mine adversary declining to fight _comminus gladio_, but breaking
ground in a manner unworthy of a gallant soldado, and the place, saving
your presence, being somewhat slippery and treacherous because of the
goats that were fed there, I delivered a sufficient onslaught; and he
fell, his sword flying from his hand. When I had taken his weapon—the
_spolia opima_, as we said at Mareschal College—I bid him rise, and then
discoursed him on the dishonour of such a hasty defeat. Then, he
confessing himself to me that, though under arms, he was a young
fledgeling priest in Popish orders, I began upon him with such words on
his disgracing the noble profession of arms as might have made him choose
to return to his cloister; when suddenly he fled, and, being young and
light-footed, robbed me, not only of such caduacs and casualties as an
experienced cavalier might well take from his prisoner for ransom, but
also, as now it appears, of my good name. For I doubt not that this
musketeer priest, Monsieur Aramis, or l’Abbé d’Herblay (for he hath as
many names as I have seen campaigns), was the loon that beguiled with a
lying tale the newsman of the “Gallo Belgicus.” And I have ever seen
that an honourable soldado will give the go-by to these newsmen and their
flying sheets, as unworthy of the notice of honourable cavaliers; of whom
(recommending your lordship for the truth of my tale to my Lord Winter,
now with his gracious Majesty the King) I am fain to subscribe myself
one, and your lordship’s poor officer, as ye shall entreat him,
DUGALD DALGETTY, of Drumthwacket,
Late Commander of the whole stift of Dunklespiel
on the Lower Rhine.