Heralds of Empire

  CHAPTER XXV

  JACK BATTLE AGAIN

  The higher one's hopes mount the farther they have to fall; and I, whohad mounted to stars with Hortense, was pushed to the gutter by theking's dragoons making way for the royal equipage. There was acrackling of whips among the king's postillions. A yeoman thrust thecrowd back with his pike. The carriages rolled past. The flash of alinkman's torch revealed Hortense sitting languid and scornful betweenthe foreign countess and that milliner's dummy of a lieutenant. Thenthe royal carriages were lost in the darkness, and the streets throngedby a rabble of singing, shouting, hilarious revellers.

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

  One sturdy watch, I mind, stood his guard, laying about with a stoutpike 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 withhis lantern tied to his heels. At the rush of the rabble for shelvesof cakes and pies, one shopman levelled his blunderbuss. That broughtshouts of "A sweat! A sweat!" In a twinkling the rascals were abouthim. A sword pricked from behind. The fellow jumped. Another prick,and yet another, till the good man was dancing such a jig the sweatrolled from his fat jowls and he roared out promise to feast the wholerout. A peddler of small images had lingered to see the sport, andenough of it he had, I promise you; for they dumped him into his wickerbasket and trundled it through the gutter till the peddler and hislittle white saints were black as chimney-sweeps. Nor did our merryblades play their pranks on poor folk alone. At Will's Coffee House,where sat Dryden and other mighty quidnuncs spinning their poetry andpolitics over full cups, before mine host got his doors barred ourfellows had charged in, seized one of the great wits and set himsinging Gammer Gurton's Needle, till the gentlemen were glad to putdown pennies for the company to drink healths.

  By this I had enough of your gentleman bully's brawling, and I gave thefellows the slip to meet Pierre Radisson at the General Council ofHudson's Bay Adventurers to be held in John Horth's offices in BroadStreet. Our gentlemen adventurers were mighty jealous of their secretsin those days. I think they imagined their great game-preserve a kindof Spanish gold-mine safer hidden from public ken, and they held theirmeetings with an air of mystery that pirates might have worn. For mypart, I do not believe there were French spies hanging round Horth'soffice for knowledge of the Fur Company's doings, though thedoorkeeper, who gave me a chair in the anteroom, reported that astrange-looking fellow with a wife as from foreign parts had beenasking for me all that day, and refused to leave till he had learnedthe 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," confidedthe 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 omento 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 andbegging of pardon. Then the councillors began to come: Arlington andAshley of the court, one of those Carterets, who had been on the BostonCommission long ago and first induced M. Radisson to go to England, andat last His Royal Highness the Duke of York, deep in conversation withmy 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 agood Englishman once before."

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

  "Till he undo the evil he has done--till he capture back all that hetook from us--then," says Sir John cautiously, "then we must considerwhether 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 theanteroom. A moment later Pierre Radisson came out with eyes alight andface elate.

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

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

  "I go."

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

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

  "Furs?" says M. Radisson. "Sir, mark my words, 'tis a world that growsempires--also men," with an emphasis which those court dandies couldnot 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 yourwars and your butchery and your shambles! Mark my words: it is a landthat grows men good for more than killing," and he smiles half inbitterness.

  "'Tis a prodigious expensive land in diplomacy when men like you arelet 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 darkstreets; "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 withthe prince, for Sir John Kirke was Pierre Radisson's father-in-law. Atthe door of the Star and Garter mine host calls out that astrange-looking fellow wearing a grizzled beard and with a wife as fromforeign parts had been waiting all afternoon for me in my rooms.

  "From foreign parts!" repeats M. Radisson, getting into a chair to goto Sir John's house in Drury Lane. "If they're French spies, send themright 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 Ipaused. That morning I had gone from the house light-hearted. Nowinterest had died from life. I had but one wish, to reach thatwilderness of swift conflict, where thought has no time for regret.The door was ajar. A coal fire burned on the hearth. Sitting on thefloor were two figures with backs towards me, a ragged, bearded man anda 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 closingdoor caught their hearing. I was in the north again; an Indian girlwas on her knees clinging to my feet, sobbing out incoherent gratitude;a pair of arms were belabouring my shoulders; and a voice was sayingwith broken gurgles of joy: "Ship ahoy, there! Ease your helm! Don'theave all your ballast overboard!"--a clapping of hands on myback--"Port your helm! Ease her up! All sheets in the wind and thestorms'l aflutter! Ha-ha!" with a wringing and a wringing like towrench 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 joyand thrashing his arms about as if to belab
our me again.

  "But who is this, Jack?"

  I lifted the Indian woman from her knees. It was the girl my blow hadsaved 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 parsonnearer nor three thousand leagues and more. And say," adds Jack, "Is'pose there was marryin' afore there _could_ be parsons! She saved mylife. She hain't no folks. I hain't no folks. She got away thatmorning o' the massacre--she see them take us captive--she gets a whitepelt to hide her agen the snow--she come, she do all them cold milesand lets me loose when the braves ain't watching . . . she risks herlife to save my life--she don't belong to nobody. I don't belong tonobody. 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. "God bless you--you are a man!"

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

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

  "Yes, but folks won't understand," pleaded Jack, "and--and--I'd do asmuch for you--I wanted you to stand by me and tell me where to say'yes' when the parson reads the words----"

  "All right--I shall," I promised, laughing.

  If only Hortense could know all this! That is the sorrow of riftedlives--the dark between, on each side the thoughts that yearn.

  "And--and," Jack was stammering on, "I thought, perhaps, MistressRebecca 'd be willing to stand by Mizza," nodding to the young squaw,"that is, if you asked Rebecca," pleaded Jack.

  "We'll see," said I.

  For the New England conscience was something to reckon with!

  "How did you come here?" I asked.

  "Mizza snared rabbits and I stole back my musket when we ran away anddid some shooting long as powder lasted----"

  "And then?"

  "And then we used bow and arrow. We hid in the bush till the hostilesquit cruisin'; but the spring storms caught us when we started for thecoast. I s'pose I'm a better sailor on water than land, for split mefor a herring if my eyes didn't go blind from snow! We hove to in thewoods again, Mizza snaring rabbit and building a lodge and keepin' fireagoin' and carin' for me as if I deserved it. There I laywater-logged, odd's man--blind as a mole till the spring thaws came.Then Mizza an' me built a raft; for sez I to Miz, though she didn'tunderstand: 'Miz,' sez I, 'water don't flow uphill! If we rig up acraft, that river'll carry us to the bay!' But she only gets down onthe ground the way she did with you and puts my foot on her neck.Lordy," laughs Jack, "s'pose I don't know what a foot on a neck feelslike? I sez: 'Miz, if you ever do that again, I'll throw youoverboard!' Then the backwash came so strong from the bay, we had towait till the floods settled. While we swung at anchorman, what d'y'think happened? I taught Miz English. Soon as ever she knew wordsenough I told her if I was a captain I'd want a mate! She didn't catchthe wind o' that, lad, till we were navigating our raft downstream agenthe ice-jam. Ship ahoy, you know, the ice was like to nip us, andlackin' a life-belt I put me arm round her waist! Ease your helm!Port--a little! Haul away! But she understood--when she saw me saveher from the jam before I saved myself."

  And Jack Battle stood away arm's length from his Indian wife andlaughed his pride.

  "And by the time we'd got to the bay you'd gone, but Jean Groseillerssent us to the English ship that came out expecting to find GovernorBrigdar at Nelson. We shipped with the company boat, and here we be."

  "And what are you going to do?"

  "Oh, I get work enough on the docks to pay for Mizza's lessons--"

  "Lessons?"

  "Yes--she's learning sewin' and readin' from the nuns, and as soon asshe's baptized we're going to be married regular."

  "Oh!" A sigh of relief escaped me. "Then you'll not need Rebecca forsix months or so?"

  "No; but you'll ask her?" pleaded Jack.

  "If I'm here."

  As they were going out Jack slipped back from the hallway to thefireplace, leaving Mizza outside.

  "Ramsay?"

  "Yes?"

  "You think--it's--it's--all right?"

  "What?"

  "What I done about a mate?"

  "Right?" I reiterated. "Here's my hand to you--blessing on the voyage,Captain Jack Battle!"

  "Ah," smiled Jack, "you've been to the wilderness--you understand!Other folks don't! That is the way it happens out there!"

  He lingered as of old when there was more to come.

  "Ramsay?"

  "Sail away, captain!"

  "Have you seen Hortense?" he asked, looking straight at me.

  "Um--yes--no--that is--I have and I haven't."

  "Why haven't you?"

  "Because having become a grand lady, her ladyship didn't choose to seeme."

  Jack Battle turned on his heel and swore a seaman's oath."That--that's a lie," said he.

  "Very well--it's a lie, but this is what happened," and I told him ofthe scene in the theatre. Jack pulled a puzzled face, looking askanceas he listened.

  "Why didn't you go round to her box, the way M. Radisson did to theking's?"

  "You forget I am only a trader!"

  "Pah," says Jack, "that is nothing!"

  "You forget that Lieutenant Blood might have objected to my visit," andI told him of Blood.

  "But how was Mistress Hortense to know that?"

  Wounded pride hugs its misery, and I answered nothing.

  At the door he stopped. "You go along with Radisson to Oxford," hecalled. "The court will be there."