Heralds of Empire Part 37

PART III

CHAPTER XXIII

A CHANGE OF PARTNERS

Old folks are wont to repeat themselves, but that is because they would impress those garnered lessons which age no longer has strength to drive 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 was beating time for your younger generations to march by. And so I say to you who are wiser by the follies of your fathers, look not back too scornfully; for he who is ever watching to mock at the tripping of other men's feet is like to fall over a very small stumbling-block himself.

Already have I told you of holy men who would gouge a man's eye out for the extraction of one small bean, and counted burnings life's highest joy, and held the body accursed as a necessary evil for the tabernacling of the soul. Now must I tell you of those who wantoned "in the l.u.s.t of the flesh and the l.u.s.t of the eye and the pride of life," who burned their lives out at a shrine of folly, and who held that the soul and all things spiritual had gone out of fas.h.i.+on except for the making of vows and pretty conceits in verse by a lover to his lady.

For Pierre Radisson's fears of France playing false proved true. Bare had our keels b.u.mped through that forest of sailing craft, which ever swung to the tide below Quebec fort, when a company of young cadets marches down from the Castle St. Louis to escort us up to M. de la Barre, the new governor.

"Hm," says M. Radisson, looking in his half-savage buckskins a wild enough figure among all those young jacks-in-a-box with their gold lace and steel breastplates. "Hm--let the governor come to us! An you will not go to a man, a man must come to you!"

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

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

M. de Radisson bade us answer the salute by a firing of muskets in mid-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 your cadets," says M. de Radisson, meeting the governor half-way across the gang-plank.

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

"I bade my cadets request you to _report_ at the castle," says he, with a 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 a pace to go ash.o.r.e, the governor scarce courting rebuff in sight of his soldiers.

"Radisson," says M. de la Barre, motioning his soldiers back and following to our captain's cabin, "a fellow was haltered and whipped for 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 the door, and at our leader's bravado M. de la Barre saw fit to throw off all disguise.

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

"And those who go to the galleys get no more furs to divide with the Governor of New France, and the governor who gets no furs goes home a poor 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 s.h.i.+ps a good cargo? They must remain here till our officer examines them."

Which meant till the governor's minions looted both vessels for His Excellency's profit. M. Radisson, who knew that the better part of the furs were already crossing the ocean, nodded his a.s.sent.

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

"The prisoners matter nothing--'tis their s.h.i.+p 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 came here?"

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

"Eh--man!" says the governor, tapping the table with a doc.u.ment he pulled from his greatcoat pocket and shrugging his shoulders with a deprecating gesture of the hands, "if her crew feared sharks, they should have defended her against capture. Now--your prize must go back to New England and we lose the profit! Here," says he, "are orders from the king and M. Colbert that nothing be done to offend the subjects of King Charles of England----"

"Which means that Barillon, the French amba.s.sador----?"

M. de la Barre laid his finger on his lips. "Walls have ears! If one king 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 present himself 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!"

"Pis.h.!.+" says he impatiently, "plain as day--we must sail on the frigate for France, or they imprison us here--in Paris we shall be kept dangling by promises, hangers-on and do-nothings till the moneys are all used--then----"

"Then--sir?"

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

"Do we sail in that case?"

"Egad, yes! Why not? Keep your colours flying and you may sail into h.e.l.l, man, and conquer, too! Yes--we sail! Man or devil, don't swerve, lad! Go your gait! Go your gait! Chouart here will look after the s.h.i.+ps! Paris is near London, and praise be Providence for that little maid of thine! We shall presently have letters from her--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 tattered pages of a handbook, these notes: