“But your honor, the sheep may well tremble without the shepherd.”

“Tremble!” replied Monk, in his calm and powerful voice; “ah, monsieur, what a word!  Curse me, if my sheep have not both teeth and claws; I renounce being their shepherd.  Ah, you tremble, gentlemen, do you?”

“Yes, general, for you.”

“Oh! pray meddle with your own concerns.  If I have not the wit God gave to Oliver Cromwell, I have that which He has sent to me:  I am satisfied with it, however little it may be.”

The officer made no reply; and Monk, having imposed silence on his people, all remained persuaded that he had accomplished some important work or made some important trial.  This was forming a very poor conception of his patience and scrupulous genius.  Monk, if he had the good faith of the Puritans, his allies, must have returned fervent thanks to the patron saint who had taken him from the box of M. d’Artagnan.  Whilst these things were going on, our musketeer could not help constantly repeating, —

“God grant that M. Monk may not have as much pride as I have; for I declare that if any one had put me into a coffer with that grating over my mouth, and carried me packed up, like a calf, across the seas, I should cherish such a memory of my piteous looks in that coffer, and such an ugly animosity against him who had inclosed me in it, I should dread so greatly to see a sarcastic smile blooming upon the face of the malicious wretch, or in his attitude any grotesque imitation of my position in the box, that, Mordioux! I should plunge a good dagger into his throat in compensation for the grating, and would nail him down in a veritable bier, in remembrance of the false coffin in which I had been left in to grow moldy for two days.”

And D’Artagnan spoke honestly when he spoke thus; for the skin of our Gascon was a very thin one.  Monk, fortunately, entertained other ideas.  He never opened his mouth to his timid conqueror concerning the past; but he admitted him very near to his person in his labors, took him with him to several reconnoiterings, in such a way as to obtain that which he evidently warmly desired, — a rehabilitation in the mind of D’Artagnan.  The latter conducted himself like a past-master in the art of flattery:  he admired all Monk’s tactics, and the ordering of his camp; he joked very pleasantly upon the circumvallations of Lambert’s camp, who had, he said, very uselessly given himself the trouble to inclose a camp for twenty thousand men, whilst an acre of ground would have been quite sufficient for the corporal and fifty guards who would perhaps remain faithful to him.