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.
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