Heralds of Empire Part 41

Different generations have different ways of taking their pleasure, and the youth of King Charles's day were alternately bullies on the street and dandies at the feet of my lady disdainful. At the approach of the shouting, night-watchmen threw down their lanterns and took to their heels. Street-sweeps tossed their brooms in mid-road with cries of "The Scowerers! The Scowerers!" Hucksters fled into the dark of side lanes. Shopkeepers shot their door-bolts. Householders blew out lights. Fruit-venders made off without their baskets, and small urchins shrieked the alarm of "Baby-eaters! Baby-eaters!"

One st.u.r.dy watch, I mind, stood his guard, laying about with a stout pike in a way that broke our fine revellers' heads like soft pumpkins; but him they stood upon his crown in some goodwife's rain-barrel with his lantern tied to his heels. At the rush of the rabble for shelves of cakes and pies, one shopman levelled his blunderbuss. That brought shouts of "A sweat! A sweat!" In a twinkling the rascals were about him. A sword p.r.i.c.ked from behind. The fellow jumped. Another p.r.i.c.k, and yet another, till the good man was dancing such a jig the sweat rolled from his fat jowls and he roared out promise to feast the whole rout. A peddler of small images had lingered to see the sport, and enough of it he had, I promise you; for they dumped him into his wicker basket and trundled it through the gutter till the peddler and his little white saints were black as chimney-sweeps. Nor did our merry blades play their pranks on poor folk alone. At Will's Coffee House, where sat Dryden and other mighty quidnuncs spinning their poetry and politics over full cups, before mine host got his doors barred our fellows had charged in, seized one of the great wits and set him singing Gammer Gurton's Needle, till the gentlemen were glad to put down pennies for the company to drink healths.

By this I had enough of your gentleman bully's brawling, and I gave the fellows the slip to meet Pierre Radisson at the General Council of Hudson's Bay Adventurers to be held in John Horth's offices in Broad Street. Our gentlemen adventurers were mighty jealous of their secrets in those days. I think they imagined their great game-preserve a kind of Spanish gold-mine safer hidden from public ken, and they held their meetings with an air of mystery that pirates might have worn. For my part, I do not believe there were French spies hanging round Horth's office for knowledge of the Fur Company's doings, though the doorkeeper, who gave me a chair in the anteroom, reported that a strange-looking fellow with a wife as from foreign parts had been asking for me all that day, and refused to leave till he had learned the address of my lodgings.

"'Ave ye taken the hoath of hallegiance, sir?" asked the porter.

"I was born in England," said I dryly.

"Your renegade of a French savage is atakin' the hoath now," confided the porter, jerking his thumb towards the inner door. "They do say as 'ow it is for love of Mary Kirke and not the English--"

"Your renegade of a French--who?" I asked sharply, thinking it ill omen to hear a flunkey of the English Company speaking lightly of our leader.

But at the question the fellow went glum with a tipping and bowing and begging of pardon. Then the councillors began to come: Arlington and Ashley of the court, one of those Carterets, who had been on the Boston Commission long ago and first induced M. Radisson to go to England, and at last His Royal Highness the Duke of York, deep in conversation with my kinsman, Sir John Kirke.

"It can do no harm to employ him for one trip," Sir John was saying.

"He hath taken the oath?" asks His Royal Highness.

"He is taking it to-night; but," laughs Sir John, "we thought he was a good Englishman once before."

"Your company used him ill. You must keep him from going over to the French again."

"Till he undo the evil he has done--till he capture back all that he took from us--then," says Sir John cautiously, "then we must consider whether it be politic to keep a gamester in the company."

"Anyway," adds His Highness, "France will not take him back."

And the door closed on the councillors while I awaited Radisson in the anteroom. A moment later Pierre Radisson came out with eyes alight and face elate.

"I've signed to sail in three days," he announced. "Do you go with me or no?"

Two memories came back: one of a face between a westering sun and a golden sea, and I hesitated; the other, of a cold, pallid, disdainful look from the royal box.

"I go."

And entering the council chamber, I signed the papers without one glance at the terms. Gentlemen sat all about the long table, and at the head was the governor of the company--the Duke of York, talking freely with M. de Radisson.

My Lord Ashley would know if anything but furs grew in that wild New World.

"Furs?" says M. Radisson. "Sir, mark my words, 'tis a world that grows empires--also men," with an emphasis which those court dandies could not understand.

But the wise gentlemen only smiled at M. Radisson's warmth.

"If it grew good soldiers for our wars--" begins one military gentleman.

"Aye," flashes back M. Radisson ironically, "if it grows men for your wars and your butchery and your shambles! Mark my words: it is a land that grows men good for more than killing," and he smiles half in bitterness.

"'Tis a prodigious expensive land in diplomacy when men like you are let loose in it," remarks Arlington.

His Royal Highness rose to take his leave.

"You will present a full report to His Majesty at Oxford," he orders M.

Radisson in parting.

Then the council dispersed.

"Oxford," says M. Radisson, as we picked our way home through the dark streets; "an I go to meet the king at Oxford, you will see a hornets'

nest of jealousy about my ears."

I did not tell him of the double work implied in Sir John's words with the prince, for Sir John Kirke was Pierre Radisson's father-in-law. At the door of the Star and Garter mine host calls out that a strange-looking fellow wearing a grizzled beard and with a wife as from foreign parts had been waiting all afternoon for me in my rooms.

"From foreign parts!" repeats M. Radisson, getting into a chair to go to Sir John's house in Drury Lane. "If they're French spies, send them right about, Ramsay! We've stopped gamestering!"

"We have; but perhaps the others haven't."

"Let them game," laughs M. Radisson scornfully, as the chair moved off.

Not knowing what to expect I ran up-stairs to my room. At the door I paused. That morning I had gone from the house light-hearted. Now interest had died from life. I had but one wish, to reach that wilderness of swift conflict, where thought has no time for regret.

The door was ajar. A coal fire burned on the hearth. Sitting on the floor were two figures with backs towards me, a ragged, bearded man and a woman with a shawl over her head. What fools does hope make of us!

I had almost called out Hortense's name when the noise of the closing door caught their hearing. I was in the north again; an Indian girl was on her knees clinging to my feet, sobbing out incoherent grat.i.tude; a pair of arms were belabouring my shoulders; and a voice was saying with broken gurgles of joy: "s.h.i.+p ahoy, there! Ease your helm! Don't heave all your ballast overboard!"--a clapping of hands on my back--"Port your helm! Ease her up! All sheets in the wind and the storms'l aflutter! Ha-ha!" with a wringing and a wringing like to wrench my hands off--"Anchor out! Haul away! Home with her . . . !"

"Jack Battle!"

It was all I could say.

There he was, grizzled and bronzed and weather-worn, laughing with joy and thras.h.i.+ng his arms about as if to belabour me again.

"But who is this, Jack?"

I lifted the Indian woman from her knees. It was the girl my blow had saved that morning long ago.

"Who--what is this?"

"My wife," Says Jack, swinging his arms afresh and proud as a prince.

"Your wife? . . . Where . . . who married you?"

"There warn't no parson," says Jack, "that is, there warn't no parson nearer nor three thousand leagues and more. And say," adds Jack, "I s'pose there was marryin' afore there _could_ be parsons! She saved my life. She hain't no folks. I hain't no folks. She got away that morning o' the ma.s.sacre--she see them take us captive--she gets a white pelt to hide her agen the snow--she come, she do all them cold miles and lets me loose when the braves ain't watching . . . she risks her life to save my life--she don't belong to n.o.body. I don't belong to n.o.body. There waren't no parson, but we're married tight . . .

and--and--let not man put asunder," says Jack.

For full five minutes there was not a word.

The east was trying to understand the west!

"Amen, Jack," said I. "G.o.d bless you--you are a man!"

"We mean to get a parson and have it done straight yet," explained Jack, "but I wanted you to stand by me----"

"Faith, Jack, you've done it pretty thorough without any help----"