Heralds of Empire

by Agnes C. Laut

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A CHANGE OF PARTNERS

  Old folks are wont to repeat themselves, but that is because they wouldimpress those garnered lessons which age no longer has strength todrive home at one blow.

  Royalist and Puritan, each had his lesson to learn, as I said before.Each marked the pendulum swing to a wrong extreme, and the pendulum wasbeating time for your younger generations to march by. And so I say toyou who are wiser by the follies of your fathers, look not back tooscornfully; for he who is ever watching to mock at the tripping ofother men's feet is like to fall over a very small stumbling-blockhimself.

  Already have I told you of holy men who would gouge a man's eye out forthe extraction of one small bean, and counted burnings life's highestjoy, and held the body accursed as a necessary evil for thetabernacling of the soul. Now must I tell you of those who wantoned"in the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride oflife," who burned their lives out at a shrine of folly, and who heldthat the soul and all things spiritual had gone out of fashion exceptfor the making of vows and pretty conceits in verse by a lover to hislady.

  For Pierre Radisson's fears of France playing false proved true. Barehad our keels bumped through that forest of sailing craft, which everswung to the tide below Quebec fort, when a company of young cadetsmarches down from the Castle St. Louis to escort us up to M. de laBarre, the new governor.

  "Hm," says M. Radisson, looking in his half-savage buckskins a wildenough figure among all those young jacks-in-a-box with their gold laceand steel breastplates. "Hm--let the governor come to us! An you willnot go to a man, a man must come to you!"

  "I am indisposed," says he to the cadets. "Let the governor come tome."

  And come he did, with a company of troops fresh out from France and aroar of cannon from the ramparts that was more for the frightening thanwelcoming of us.

  M. de Radisson bade us answer the salute by a firing of muskets inmid-air. Then we all let go a cheer for the Governor of New France.

  "I must thank Your Excellency for the welcome sent down by yourcadets," says M. de Radisson, meeting the governor half-way across thegang-plank.

  M. de la Barre, an iron-gray man past the prime of life, gave sparesmile in answer to that.

  "I bade my cadets request you to _report_ at the castle," says he, witha hard wrinkling of the lines round his lips.

  "I bade your fellows report that I was indisposed!"

  "Did the north not agree with Sieur Radisson?" asks the governor dryly.

  "Pardieu!--yes--better than the air of Quebec," retorts M. Radisson.

  By this the eyes of the listeners were agape, M. Radisson not budging apace to go ashore, the governor scarce courting rebuff in sight of hissoldiers.

  "Radisson," says M. de la Barre, motioning his soldiers back andfollowing to our captain's cabin, "a fellow was haltered and whippedfor disrespect to the bishop yesterday!"

  "Fortunately," says M. Radisson, touching the hilt of his rapier,"gentlemen settle differences in a simpler way!"

  They had entered the cabin, where Radisson bade me stand guard at thedoor, and at our leader's bravado M. de la Barre saw fit to throw offall disguise.

  "Radisson," he said, "those who trade without license are sent to thegalleys----"

  "And those who go to the galleys get no more furs to divide with theGovernor of New France, and the governor who gets no furs goes home apoor man."

  M. de la Barre's sallow face wrinkled again in a dry laugh.

  "La Chesnaye has told you?"

  "La Chesnaye's son----"

  "Have the ships a good cargo? They must remain here till our officerexamines them."

  Which meant till the governor's minions looted both vessels for HisExcellency's profit. M. Radisson, who knew that the better part of thefurs were already crossing the ocean, nodded his assent.

  "But about these English prisoners, of whom La Chesnaye sent word fromIsle Percee?" continued the governor.

  "The prisoners matter nothing--'tis their ship has value----"

  "She must go back," interjects M. de la Barre.

  "Back?" exclaims M. Radisson.

  "Why didn't you sell her to some Spanish adventurer before you camehere?"

  "Spanish adventurer--Your Excellency? I am no butcher!"

  "Eh--man!" says the governor, tapping the table with a document hepulled from his greatcoat pocket and shrugging his shoulders with adeprecating gesture of the hands, "if her crew feared sharks, theyshould have defended her against capture. Now--your prize must go backto New England and we lose the profit! Here," says he, "are ordersfrom the king and M. Colbert that nothing be done to offend thesubjects of King Charles of England----"

  "Which means that Barillon, the French ambassador----?"

  M. de la Barre laid his finger on his lips. "Walls have ears! If oneking be willing to buy and another to sell himself and his country,loyal subjects have no comment, Radisson." [1]

  "Loyal subjects!" sneers M. de Radisson.

  "And that reminds me, M. Colbert orders Sieur Radisson to presenthimself in Paris and report on the state of the fur-trade to the king!"

  "Ramsay," said M. Radisson to me, after Governor la Barre had gone,"this is some new gamestering!"

  "Your court players are too deep for me, sir!"

  "Pish!" says he impatiently, "plain as day--we must sail on the frigatefor France, or they imprison us here--in Paris we shall be keptdangling by promises, hangers-on and do-nothings till the moneys areall used--then----"

  "Then--sir?"

  "Then, active men are dangerous men, and dangerous men may lie safe andquiet in the sponging-house!"

  "Do we sail in that case?"

  "Egad, yes! Why not? Keep your colours flying and you may sail intohell, man, and conquer, too! Yes--we sail! Man or devil, don'tswerve, lad! Go your gait! Go your gait! Chouart here will lookafter the ships! Paris is near London, and praise be Providence forthat little maid of thine! We shall presently have letters fromher--and," he added, "from Sir John Kirke of the Hudson's Bay Company!"

  And it was even as he foretold. I find, on looking over the tatteredpages of a handbook, these notes:

  _Oct. 6._--Ben Gillam and Governor Brigdar this day sent back to NewEngland. There will be great complaints against us in the Englishcourt before we can reach London.

  _Nov. 11._--Sailed for France in the French frigate.

  _Dec. 18._--Reach Rochelle--hear of M. Colbert's death.

  _Jan. 30._--Paris--all our furs seized by the French Government inorder to keep M. Radisson powerless--Lord Preston, the Englishambassador, complaining against us on the one hand, and battering ourdoors down on the other, with spies offering M. Radisson safe passagefrom Paris to London.

  I would that I had time to tell you of that hard winter in Paris, M.Radisson week by week, like a fort resisting siege, forced to takecheaper and cheaper lodgings, till we were housed between an attic roofand creaking rat-ridden floor in the Faubourg St. Antoine. But not onejot did M. Radisson lose of his kingly bearing, though he went to somefete in Versailles with beaded moccasins and frayed plushes andtattered laces and hair that one of the pretty wits declared the birdswould be anesting in for hay-coils. In that Faubourg St. Antoinehouse, I mind, we took grand apartments on the ground floor, but up andup we went, till M. Radisson vowed we'd presently be under thestars--as the French say when they are homeless--unless my LordPreston, the English ambassador, came to our terms.

  That starving of us for surrender was only another trick of thegamestering in which we were enmeshed. Had Captain Godey, LordPreston's messenger, succeeded in luring us back to England withoutterms, what a pretty pickle had ours been! France would have set aprice on us. Then must we have accepted any kick-of-toe England choseto offer--and thanked our new masters for the same, else back to Francethey would have sent us.

  But attic dwellers stave off many a woe with empty stomachs and stoutcourage. When April came, boats for the fur-trade shoul
d have beenstirring, and my Lord Preston changes his tune. One night, when PierreRadisson sat spinning his yarns of captivity with Iroquois to our atticneighbours, comes a rap at the door, and in walks Captain Godey of theEnglish Embassy. As soon as our neighbours had gone, he counts out onehundred gold pieces on the table. Then he hands us a letter signed bythe Duke of York, King Charles's brother, who was Governor of theHudson's Bay Company, granting us all that we asked.

  Thereupon, Pierre Radisson asks leave of the French court to seekchange of air; but the country air we sought was that of England inMay, not France, as the court inferred.

  [1] The reference is evidently to the secret treaty by which KingCharles of England received annual payment for compliance with KingLouis's schemes for French aggression.