“Clearly,” said D’Artagnan, “we must go where they will not look for us. Now, they will be far from looking for us among the Puritans; therefore, with the Puritans we must go.”
“Good, my friend, good!” said Athos. “It is excellent advice. I was about to give it when you anticipated me.”
“That, then, is your opinion?” asked Aramis.
“Yes. They will think we are trying to leave England and will search for us at the ports; meanwhile we shall reach London with the king. Once in London we shall be hard to find—without considering,” continued Athos, throwing a glance at Aramis, “the chances that may come to us on the way.”
“Yes,” said Aramis, “I understand.”
“I, however, do not understand,” said Porthos. “But no matter; since it is at the same time the opinion of D’Artagnan and of Athos, it must be the best.”
“But,” said Aramis, “shall we not be suspected by Colonel Harrison?”
“Egad!” cried D’Artagnan, “he’s just the man I count upon. Colonel Harrison is one of our friends. We have met him twice at General Cromwell’s. He knows that we were sent from France by Monsieur Mazarin; he will consider us as brothers. Besides, is he not a butcher’s son? Well, then, Porthos shall show him how to knock down an ox with a blow of the fist, and I how to trip up a bull by taking him by the horns. That will insure his confidence.”
Athos smiled. “You are the best companion that I know, D’Artagnan,” he said, offering his hand to the Gascon; “and I am very happy in having found you again, my dear son.”
This was, as we have seen, the term which Athos applied to D’Artagnan in his more expansive moods.