"Hortense," I broke in, "you were a ward of the crown! What else was there for us to do?"

"Ah, yes!" says Hortense, "what else? You kept your promise, and a ward of the crown must marry whom the king names—"

"Marry?"

"Or—or go to a nunnery abroad."

"A nunnery?"

"Ah, yes!" mocks Hortense, "what else is there to do?"

And at that comes Blood crashing through the brush.

"Here, fellow, hands off that bridle!"

"The horse became restless. This gentleman held him for me till you came."

"Gad's life!" cries the lieutenant, dismounting. "Let's see?" And he examines the girths with a great show of concern. "A nasty tumble," says he, as if Hortense had been rolled on. "All sound, Mistress Hillary! Egad! You must not ride such a wild beast! I protest, such risks are too desperate!" And he casts up the whites of his eyes at Mistress Hortense, laying his hand on his heart. "When did you feel him getting away from you?"

"At the wall," says Hortense.

The lieutenant vaulted to his saddle.

"Here, fellow!"

He had tossed me a gold-piece. They were off. I lifted the coin, balanced it on my thumb, and flipped it ringing against the wall. When I looked up, Hortense was laughing back over her shoulder.

On May 17th we sailed from Gravesend in the Happy Return, two ships accompanying us for Hudson Bay, and a convoy of the Royal Marine coming as far as the north of Scotland to stand off Dutch highwaymen and Spanish pirates.

But I made the news of Jack Battle's marriage the occasion of a letter to one of the queen's maids of honour.



CHAPTER XXVII

HOME FROM THE BAY

'Twas as fair sailing under English colours as you could wish till Pierre Radisson had undone all the mischief that he had worked against the Fur Company in Hudson Bay. Pierre Radisson sits with a pipe in his mouth and his long legs stretched clear across the cabin-table, spinning yarns of wild doings in savage lands, and Governor Phipps, of the Hudson's Bay Company, listens with eyes a trifle too sleepily watchful, methinks, for the Frenchman's good. A summer sea kept us course all the way to the northern bay, and sometimes Pierre Radisson would fling out of the cabin, marching up and down the deck muttering, "Pah! Tis tame adventuring! Takes a dish o' spray to salt the freshness out o' men! Tis the roaring forties put nerve in a man's marrow! Soft days are your Delilah's that shave away men's strength! Toughen your fighters, Captain Gazer! Toughen your fighters!"

And once, when M. Radisson had passed beyond hearing, the governor turns with a sleepy laugh to the captain.

"A pox on the rantipole!" says he. "May the sharks test the nerve of his marrow after he's captured back the forts!"

In the bay great ice-drift stopped our way, and Pierre Radisson's impatience took fire.

"What a deuce, Captain Gazer!" he cries. "How long do you intend to squat here anchored to an ice-pan?"

A spark shot from the governor's sleepy eyes, and Captain Gazer swallowed words twice before he answered.

"Till the ice opens a way," says he.

"Opens a way!" repeats Radisson. "Man alive, why don't you carve a way?"

"Carve a way yourself, Radisson," says the governor contemptuously.

That was let enough for Pierre Radisson. He had the sailors lowering jolly-boats in a jiffy; and off seven of us went, round the ice-pans, ploughing, cutting, portaging a way till we had crossed the obstruction and were pulling for the French fort with the spars of three Company boats far in the offing.

I detained the English sailors at the river-front till M. Radisson had entered the fort and won young Jean Groseillers to the change of masters. Before the Fur Company's ships came, the English flag was flying above the fort and Fort Bourbon had become Fort Nelson.

"I bid you welcome to the French Habitation," bows Radisson, throwing wide the gates to the English governor.

"Hm!" returns Phipps, "how many beaver-skins are there in store?"

M. Radisson looked at the governor. "You must ask my tradespeople that," he answers; and he stood aside for them all to pass.

"Your English mind thinks only of the gain," he said to me.

"And your French mind?" I asked.

"The game and not the winnings," said he.

No sooner were the winnings safe—twenty thousand beaver-skins stowed away in three ships' holds—than Pierre Radisson's foes unmasked. The morning of our departure Governor Phipps marched all our Frenchmen aboard like captives of war.

"Sir," expostulated M. de Radisson, "before they gave up the fort I promised these men they should remain in the bay."

Governor Phipps's sleepy eyes of a sudden waked wide.

"Aye," he taunted, "with Frenchmen holding our fort, a pretty trick you could play us when the fancy took you!"

M. Radisson said not a word. He pulled free a gantlet and strode forward, but the doughty governor hastily scuttled down the ship's ladder and put a boat's length of water between him and Pierre Radisson's challenge.

The gig-boat pulled away. Our ship had raised anchor. Radisson leaned over the deck-rail and laughed.

"Egad, Phipps," he shouted, "a man may not fight cowards, but he can cudgel them! An I have to wait for you on the River Styx, I'll punish you for making me break promise to these good fellows!"

"Promise—and when did promise o' yours hold good, Pierre Radisson?"

The Frenchman turned with a bitter laugh.

"A giant is big enough to be hit—a giant is easy to fight," says he, "but egad, these pigmies crawl all over you and sting to death before they are visible to the naked eye!"

And as the Happy Return wore ship for open sea he stood moodily silent with eyes towards the shore where Governor Phipps's gig-boat had moored before Fort Nelson.

Then, speaking more to himself than to Jean and me, his lips curled with a hard scorn.

"The Happy Return!" says he. "Pardieu! 'tis a happy return to beat devils and then have all your own little lies come roosting home like imps that filch the victory! They don't trust me because I won by trickery! Egad! is a slaughter better than a game? An a man wins, who a devil gives a rush for the winnings? 'Tis the fight and the game—pah!—not the thing won! Storm and cold, man and beast, powers o' darkness and devil, knaves and fools and his own sins—aye, that's the scratch!—The man and the beast and the dark and the devil, he can breast 'em all with a bold front! But knaves and fools and his own sins, pah!—death grubs!—hatching and nesting in a man's bosom till they wake to sting him! Flesh-worms—vampires—blood-suckers—spun out o' a man's own tissue to sap his life!"

He rapped his pistol impatiently against the deck-rail, stalked past us, then turned.

"Lads," says he, "if you don't want gall in your wine and a grub in your victory, a' God's name keep your own counsel and play the game fair and square and aboveboard."

And though his speech worked a pretty enough havoc with fine-spun rhetoric to raise the wig off a pedant's head, Jean and I thought we read some sense in his mixed metaphors.

On all that voyage home he never once crossed words with the English officers, but took his share of hardship with the French prisoners.

"I mayn't go back to France. They think they have me cornered and in their power," he would say, gnawing at his finger-ends and gazing into space.

Once, after long reverie, he sprang up from a gun-waist where he had been sitting and uttered a scornful laugh.

"Cornered? Hah! We shall see! I snap my fingers in their faces."

Thereafter his mood brightened perceptibly, and he was the first to put foot ashore when we came to anchor in British port. There were yet four hours before the post-chaise left for London, and the English crew made the most of the time by flocking to the ale-houses. M. Radisson drew Jean and me apart.

"We'll beat our detractors yet," he said. "If news of this capture be carried to the king and the Duke of York[1] before the shareholders spread false reports, we are safe. If His Royal Highness favour us, the Company must fall in line or lose their charter!"

And he bade us hire three of the fleetest saddle-horses to be found. While the English crew were yet brawling in the taverns, we were to horse and away. Our horse's feet rang on the cobblestones with the echo of steel and the sparks flashed from M. Radisson's eyes. A wharfmaster rushed into mid-road to stop us, but M. Radisson rode him down. A uniformed constable called out to know what we were about.

"Our business!" shouts M. Radisson, and we are off.

Country franklins got their wains out of our way with mighty confusion, and coaches drew aside for us to pass, and roadside brats scampered off with a scream of freebooters; but M. Radisson only laughed.

"This is living," said he. "Give your nag rein, Jean! Whip and spur! Ramsay! Whip and spur! Nothing's won but at cost of a sting! Throw off those jack-boots, Jean! They're a handicap! Loose your holsters, lad! An any highwaymen come at us to-day I'll send him a short way to a place where he'll stay! Whip up! Whip up!"

"What have you under your arm?" cries Jean breathlessly.

"Rare furs for the king," calls Radisson.

Then the wind is in our hair, and thatched cots race off in a blur on either side; plodding workmen stand to stare and are gone; open fields give place to forest, forest to village, village to bare heath; and still we race on.

* * * * * *

Midnight found us pounding through the dark of London streets for Cheapside, where lived Mr. Young, a director of the Hudson's Bay Company, who was favourable to Pierre Radisson.

"Halloo! Halloo!" shouts Radisson, beating his pistol-butt on the door.

A candle and a nightcap emerge from the upper window.

"Who's there?" demands a voice.

"It's Radisson, Mr. Young!"

"Radisson! In the name o' the fiends—where from?"

"Oh, we've just run across the way from Hudson Bay!" says Radisson.

And the good man presently appears at the door with a candle in one hand and a bludgeon in the other.

"In the name o' the fiends, when did you arrive, man?" exclaims Mr. Young, hailing us inside.

"Two minutes ago by the clock," laughs Radisson, looking at the timepiece in the hall. "Two minutes and a half ago," says he, following our host to the library.

"How many beaver-skins?" asks the Englishman, setting down his candle.

The Frenchman smiles.

"Twenty thousand beaver—skins and as many more of other sorts!"

The Englishman sits down to pencil out how much that will total at ten shillings each; and Pierre Radisson winks at us.

"The winnings again," says he.

"Twenty thousand pounds!" cries our host, springing up.

"Aye," says Pierre Radisson, "twenty thousand pounds' worth o' fur without a pound of shot or the trade of a nail-head for them. The French had these furs in store ready for us!"

Mr. Young lifts his candle so that the light falls on Radisson's bronzed face. He stands staring as if to make sure we are no wraiths.

"Twenty thousand pounds," says he, slowly extending his right hand to Pierre Radisson. "Radisson, man, welcome!"

The Frenchman bows with an ironical laugh.

"Twenty thousand pounds' worth o' welcome, sir!"

But the director of the Fur Company rambles on unheeding.

"These be great news for the king and His Royal Highness," says he.

"Aye, and as I have some rare furs for them both, why not let us bear the news to them ourselves?" asks Radisson.

"That you shall," cries Mr. Young; and he led us up-stairs, where we might refresh ourselves for the honour of presentation to His Majesty next day.

[1] The Duke of York became Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company after Prince Rupert's death, and the Company's charter was a royal favour direct from the king.



CHAPTER XXVIII

REBECCA AND I FALL OUT

M. Radisson had carried his rare furs to the king, and I was at Sir John Kirke's door to report the return of her husband to Madame Radisson. The same grand personage with sleek jowls and padded calves opened the door in the gingerly fashion of his office. This time he ushered me quick enough into the dark reception-room.

As I entered, two figures jumped from the shadow of a tapestried alcove with gasps of fright.

"Ramsay!"

It was Rebecca, the prim monkey, blushing a deal more than her innocence warranted, with a solemn-countenanced gentleman of the cloth scowling from behind.

"When—when—did you come?" she asked, all in a pretty flutter that set her dimples atrembling; and she forgot to give me welcome.

"Now—exactly on the minute!"

"Why—why—didn't you give us warning?" stammered Rebecca, putting out one shy hand.

At that I laughed outright; but it was as much the fashion for gentlemen of the cloth to affect a mighty solemnity in those days as it was for the laity to let out an oath at every other word, and the young divine only frowned sourly at my levity.

"If—if—if you'd only given us warning," interrupts Rebecca.

"Faith, Rebecca, an you talk of warning, I'll begin to think you needed it——"

"To give you welcome," explains Rebecca. Then recovering herself, she begs, with a pretty bobbing courtesy, to make me known to the Reverend Adam Kittridge.

The Reverend Kittridge shakes hands with an air as he would sound my doctrine on the spot, and Rebecca hastens to add that I am "a very—old—old friend."

"Not so very old, Rebecca, not so very long ago since you and I read over the same lesson-books. Do you mind the copy-heads on the writing-books?

"'Heaven to find. The Bible mind. In Adam's fall we sinn'ed all. Adam lived a lonely life until he got himself a wife.'"

But at that last, which was not to be found among the head-lines of Boston's old copy-books, little Rebecca looked like to drop, and with a frightened gesture begged us to be seated, which we all accomplished with a perceptible stiffening of the young gentleman's joints.

"Is M. Radisson back?" she asks.

"He reached England yesterday. He bade me say that he will be here after he meets the shareholders. He goes to present furs to the king this morning."

"That will please Lady Kirke," says the young gentleman.

"Some one else is back in England," exclaims Rebecca, with the air of news. "Ben Gillam is here."

"O-ho! Has he seen the Company?"

"He and Governor Brigdar have been among M. Radisson's enemies. Young Captain Gillam says there's a sailor-lad working on the docks here can give evidence against M. Radisson."

"Can you guess who that sailor-lad is, Rebecca?"

"It is not—no—it is not Jack?" she asks.

"Jack it is, Rebecca. That reminds me, Jack sent a message to you!"

"A message to me?"

"Yes—you know he's married—he married last year when he was in the north."

"Married?" cries Rebecca, throwing up her hands and like to faint from surprise. "Married in the north? Why—who—who married him, Ramsay?"

"A woman, of course!"

"But—" Rebecca was blushing furiously, "but—I mean—was there a chaplain? Had you a preacher? And—and was not Mistress Hortense the only woman——?"

"No—child—there were thousands of women—native women——"

"Squaws!" exclaims the prim little Puritan maid, with a red spot burning on each cheek. "Do you mean that Jack Battle has married a squaw?" and she rose indignantly.

"No—I mean a woman! Now, Rebecca, will you sit down till I tell you all about it?"

"Sir," interjects the young gentleman of the cloth, "I protest there are things that a maid ought not to hear!"

"Then, sir, have a care that you say none of them under cloak of religion! Honi soit qui mal y pense! The mind that thinketh no evil taketh no evil."

Then I turned to Rebecca, standing with a startled look in her eyes.

"Rebecca, Madame Radisson has told you how Jack was left to be tortured by the Indians?"

"Hortense has told me."

"And how he risked his life to save an Indian girl's life?"

"Yes," says Rebecca, with downcast lids.

"That Indian girl came and untied Jack's bonds the night of the massacre. They escaped together. When he went snow-blind, Mizza hunted and snared for him and kept him. Her people were all dead; she could not go back to her tribe—if Jack had left her in the north, the hostiles would have killed her. Jack brought her home with him——"

"He ought to have put her in a house of correction," snapped Rebecca.

"Rebecca! Why would he put her in a house of correction? What had she done that she ought not to have done? She had saved his life. He had saved hers, and he married her."

"There was no minister," said Rebecca, with a tightening of her childish dimpled mouth and a reddening of her cheeks and a little indignant toss of the chin.

"Rebecca! How could they get a minister a thousand leagues away from any church? They will get one now——"

Rebecca rose stiffly, her little lily face all aflame.

"My father saith much evil cometh of this—it is sin—he ought not to have married her; and—and—it is very wrong of you to be telling me this—" she stammered angrily, with her little hands clasped tight across the white stomacher.

"Very unfit," comes from that young gentleman of the cloth.

We were all three standing, and I make no doubt my own face went as red as theirs, for the taunt bit home. That inference of evil where no evil was, made an angrier man than was my wont. The two moved towards the door. I put myself across their way.

"Rebecca, you do yourself wrong! You are measuring other people's deeds with too short a yardstick, little woman, and the wrong is in your own mind, not theirs."

"I—I—don't know what you mean!" cried Rebecca obstinately, with a break in her voice that ought to have warned; but her next words provoked afresh. "It was wicked!—it was sinful!"—with an angry stamp—"it was shameful of Jack Battle to marry an Indian girl——"

There I cut in.

"Was it?" I asked. "Young woman, let me tell you a bald truth! When a white man marries an Indian, the union is as honourable as your own would be. It is when the white man does not marry the Indian that there is shame; and the shame is to the white man, not the Indian——!"

Sure, one might let an innocent bundle of swans' down and baby cheeks have its foibles without laying rough hands upon them!

The next,—little Rebecca cries out that I've insulted her, is in floods of tears, and marches off on the young gentleman's arm.

Comes a clatter of slippered heels on the hall floor and in bustles my Lady Kirke, bejewelled and befrilled and beflounced till I had thought no mortal might bend in such massive casings of starch.

"La," she pants, "good lack!—Wellaway! My fine savage! Welladay! What a pretty mischief have you been working? Proposals are amaking at the foot of the stairs. O—lud! The preacher was akissing that little Puritan maid as I came by! Good lack, what will Sir John say?"

And my lady laughs and laughs till I look to see the tears stain the rouge of her cheeks.

"O-lud," she laughs, "I'm like to die! He tried to kiss the baggage! And the little saint jumps back so quick that he hit her ear by mistake! La," she laughs, "I'm like to die!"

I'd a mind to tell her ladyship that a loosening of her stays might prolong life, but I didn't. Instead, I delivered the message from Pierre Radisson and took myself off a mighty mad man; for youth can be angry, indeed. And the cause of the anger was the same as fretteth the Old World and New to-day. Rebecca was measuring Jack by old standards. I was measuring Rebecca by new standards. And the measuring of the old by the new and the new by the old teareth love to tatters.

Pierre Radisson I met at the entrance to the Fur Company's offices in Broad Street. His steps were of one on steel springs and his eyes afire with victory.

"We've beaten them," he muttered to me. "His Majesty favours us! His Majesty accepted the furs and would have us at Whitehall to-morrow night to give account of our doings. An they try to trick me out of reward I'll have them to the foot o' the throne!"

But of Pierre Radisson's intrigue against his detractors I was not thinking at all.

"Were the courtiers about?" I asked.

"Egad! yes; Palmer and Buckingham and Ashley leering at Her Grace of Portsmouth, with Cleveland looking daggers at the new favourite, and the French ambassador shaking his sides with laughter to see the women at battle. His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, got us access to present the furs. Egad, Ramsay, I am a rough man, but it seemed prodigious strange to see a king giving audience in the apartments of the French woman, and great men leering for a smile from that huzzy! The king lolls on a Persian couch with a litter of spaniel puppies on one side and the French woman on the other. And what do you think that black-eyed jade asks when I present the furs and tell of our captured Frenchmen? To have her own countrymen sold to the Barbadoes so that she may have the money for her gaming-table! Egad, I spiked that pretty plan by saying the Frenchmen were sending her a present of furs, too! To-morrow night we go to Whitehall to entertain His Majesty with our doings! We need not fear enemies in the Company now!"

"I'm not so sure of that," said I. "The Gillams have been working against you here, and so has Brigdar."

"Hah—let them work!"

"Did you see her?" I asked.

"Her?" questions Radisson absently. "Pardieu, there are so many hers about the court now with no she-saint among them! Which do you mean?"

The naming of Hortense after such speech was impossible. Without more mention of the court, we entered the Company's office, where sat the councillors in session around a long table. No one rose to welcome him who had brought such wealth on the Happy Return; and the reason was not far to seek. The post-chaise had arrived with Pierre Radisson's detractors, and allied with them were the Gillams and Governor Brigdar.

Pierre Radisson advanced undaunted and sat down. Black looks greeted his coming, and the deputy-governor, who was taking the Duke of York's place, rose to suggest that "Mr. Brigdar, wrongfully dispossessed of the fort on the bay by one Frenchman known as Radisson, be restored as governor of those parts."

A grim smile went from face to face at Pierre Radisson's expense.

"Better withdraw, man, better withdraw," whispers Sir John Kirke, his father-in-law.

But Radisson only laughs.

Then one rises to ask by what authority the Frenchman, Radisson, had gone to report matters to the king instead of leaving that to the shareholders.

M. de Radisson utters another loud laugh.

Comes a knocking, and there appears at the door Colonel Blood, father of the young lieutenant, with a message from the king.

"Gentlemen," announces the freebooter, "His Majesty hath bespoke dinner for the Fur Company at the Lion. His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, hath ordered Madeira for the councillors' refreshment, and now awaits your coming!"

For the third time M. Radisson laughs aloud with a triumph of insolence.

"Come, gentlemen," says he, "I've countered. Let us be going. His Royal Highness awaits us across the way."

Blood stood twirling his mustaches and tapping his sword-handle impatiently. He was as swarth and straight and dauntless as Pierre Radisson, with a sinister daring in his eyes that might have put the seal to any act.

"Egad's life!" he exclaimed, "do fur-traders keep royalty awaiting?"

And our irate gentleman must needs haste across to the Lion, where awaited the Company Governor, the Duke of York, with all the merry young blades of the court. King Charles's reign was a time of license, you have been told. What that meant you would have known if you had seen the Fur Company at dinner. Blood, Senior, I mind, had a drinking-match against Sir George Jeffreys, the judge; and I risk not my word on how much those two rascals put away. The judge it was who went under mahogany first, though Colonel Blood scarce had wit enough left to count the winnings of his wager. Young Lieutenant Blood stood up on his chair and bawled out some monstrous bad-writ verse to "a fair-dark lady"—whatever that meant—"who was as cold as ice and combustible as gunpowder." Healths were drunk to His Majesty King Charles, to His Royal Highness the Duke of York, to our councillors of the Company, to our governors of the fur-posts, and to the captains. Then the Duke of York himself lifted the cup to Pierre Radisson's honour; whereat the young courtiers raised such a cheering, the grim silence of Pierre Radisson's detractors passed unnoticed. After the Duke of York had withdrawn, our riotous sparks threw off all restraint. On bended knee they drank to that fair evil woman whom King Louis had sent to ensnare King Charles. Odds were offered on how long her power with the king would last. Then followed toasts to a list of second-rate names, dancing girls and French milliners, who kept place of assignation for the dissolute crew, and maids of honour, who were no maids of honour, but adventuresses in the pay of great men to advance their interest with the king, and riffraff women whose names history hath done well to forget. To these toasts Colonel Blood and Pierre Radisson and I sat with inverted glasses.

While the inn was ringing to the shouts of the revellers, the freebooter leaned across to Pierre Radisson.

"Gad's name if they like you," he mumbled drunkenly.

"Who?" asked Radisson.

"Fur Company," explained Blood. "They hate you! So they do me! But if the king favours you, they've got to have you," and he laughed to himself.

"That's the way with me," he whispered in drunken confidence to M. Radisson. "What a deuce?" he asked, turning drowsily to the table. "What's my boy doing?"

Young Lieutenant Blood was to his feet holding a reaming glass high as his head.

"Gentlemen, I give you the sweet savage!" he cried, "the Diana of the snows—a thistle like a rose—ice that burns—a pauper that spurns—"

"Curse me if he doesn't mean that saucy wench late come from your north fort," interrupted the father.

My hands were itching to throw a glass in the face of father or son, but Pierre Radisson restrained me.

"More to be done sometimes by doing nothing," he whispered.

The young fellows were on their knees draining bumpers; but Colonel Blood was rambling again.

"He gives 'em that saucy brat, does he? Gad's me, I'd give her to perdition for twopenny-worth o' rat poison! Look you, Radisson, 'tis what I did once; but she's come back! Curse me, I could 'a' done it neater and cheaper myself—twopenny-worth o' poison would do it, Picot said; but gad's me, I paid him a hundred guineas, and here she's come back again!"

"Blood . . . Colonel Blood," M. Picot had repeated at his death.

I had sprung up. Again M. Radisson held me back.

"How long ago was that, Colonel Blood?" he asked softly.

"Come twenty year this day s'ennight," mutters the freebooter. "'Twas before I entered court service. Her father had four o' my fellows gibbeted at Charing Cross, Gad's me, I swore he'd sweat for it! She was Osmond's only child—squalling brat coming with nurse over Hounslow Heath. 'Sdeath—I see it yet! Postillions yelled like stuck pigs, nurses kicked over in coach dead away. When they waked up, curse me, but the French poisoner had the brat! Curse me, I'd done better to finish her myself. Picot ran away and wrote letters—letters—letters, till I had to threaten to slit his throat, 'pon my soul, I had! And now she must marry the boy——"

"Why?" put in Radisson, with cold indifference and half-listening air.

"Gad's life, can't you see?" asked the knave. "Osmond's dead, the boy's lands are hers—the French doctor may 'a' told somebody," and Colonel Blood of His Majesty's service slid under the table with the judge.

M. Radisson rose and led the way out.

"You'd like to cudgel him," he said. "Come with me to Whitehall instead!"



CHAPTER XXIX

THE KING'S PLEASURE

My Lady Kirke was all agog.

Pierre Radisson was her "dear sweet savage," and "naughty spark," and "bold, bad beau," and "devilish fellow," and "lovely wretch!"

"La, Pierre," she cries, with a tap of her fan, "anybody can go to the king's levee! But, dear heart!" she trills, with a sidelong ogle. "Ta!—ta! naughty devil!—to think of our sweet savage going to Whitehall of an evening! Lud, Mary, I'll wager you, Her Grace of Portsmouth hath laid eyes on him——"

"The Lord forbid!" ejaculates Pierre Radisson.

"Hoighty-toighty! Now! there you go, my saucy spark! Good lack! An the king's women laid eyes on any other man, 'twould turn his head and be his fortune! Naughty fellow!" she warns, with a flirt of her fan. "We shall watch you! Ta-ta, don't tell me no! Oh, we know this gaite de coeur! You'll presently be intime o' Portsmouth and Cleveland and all o' them!"

"Madame," groans Pierre Radisson, "swear, if you will! But as you love me, don't abuse the French tongue!"

At which she gave him a slap with her fan.

"An I were not so young," she simpers, "I'd cuff your ears, you saucy Pierre!"

"So young!" mutters Pierre Radisson, with grim looks at her powdered locks. "Egad's life, so is the bud on a century plant young," and he turns to his wife.

But my Lady Kirke was blush-proof.

"Don't forget to pay special compliments to the favourites," she calls, as we set out for Whitehall; and she must run to the door in a flutter and ask if Pierre Radisson has any love-verse ready writ, in case of an amour with one of the court ladies.

"No," says Radisson, "but here are unpaid tailor bills! 'Tis as good as your billets-doux! I'll kiss 'em just as hard!"

"So!" cries Lady Kirke, bobbing a courtesy and blowing a kiss from her finger-tips as we rolled away in Sir John's coach.

"The old flirt-o'-tail," blurted Radisson, "you could pack her brains in a hazel-nut; but 'twould turn the stomach of a grub!"

* * * * * *

'Twas not the Whitehall you know to-day, which is but a remnant of the grand old pile that stretched all the way from the river front to the inner park. Before the fires, Whitehall was a city of palaces reaching far into St. James, with a fleet of royal barges at float below the river stairs. From Scotland Yard to Bridge Street the royal ensign blew to the wind above tower and parapet and battlement. I mind under the archway that spanned little Whitehall Street M. Radisson dismissed our coachman.

"How shall we bring up the matter of Hortense?" I asked.

"Trust me," said Radisson. "The gods of chance!"

"Will you petition the king direct?"

"Egad—no! Never petition a selfish man direct, or you'll get a No! Bring him round to the generous, so that he may take all credit for it himself! Do you hold back among the on-lookers till I've told our story o' the north! 'Tis not a state occasion! Egad, there'll be court wenches aplenty ready to take up with a likely looking man! Have a word with Hortense if you can! Let me but get the king's ear—" And Radisson laughed with a confidence, methought, nothing on earth could shake.

Then we were passed from the sentinel doing duty at the gate to the king's guards, and from the guards to orderlies, and from orderlies to fellows in royal colours, who led us from an ante-room to that glorious gallery of art where it pleased the king to take his pleasure that night.

It was not a state occasion, as Radisson said; but for a moment I think the glitter in which those jaded voluptuaries burned out their moth-lives blinded even the clear vision of Pierre Radisson. The great gallery was thronged with graceful courtiers and stately dowagers and gaily attired page-boys and fair ladies with a beauty of youth on their features and the satiety of age in their look. My Lord Preston, I mind, was costumed in purple velvet with trimming of pearls such as a girl might wear. Young Blood moved from group to group to show his white velvets sparkling with diamonds. One of the Sidneys was there playing at hazard with my Lady Castlemaine for a monstrous pile of gold on the table, which some onlookers whispered made up three thousand guineas. As I watched my lady lost; but in spite of that, she coiled her bare arm around the gold as if to hold the winnings back.

"And indeed," I heard her say, with a pout, "I've a mind to prove your love! I've a mind not to pay!"

At which young Sidney kisses her finger-tips and bids her pay the debt in favours; for the way to the king was through the influence of Castlemaine or Portsmouth or other of the dissolute crew.

Round other tables sat men and women, old and young, playing away estate and fortune and honour at tick-tack or ombre or basset. One noble lord was so old that he could not see to game, and must needs have his valet by to tell him how the dice came up. On the walls hung the works of Vandyke and Correggio and Raphael and Rubens; but the pure faces of art's creation looked down on statesmen bending low to the beck of adventuresses, old men pawning a noble name for the leer of a Portsmouth, and women vying for the glance of a jaded king.

At the far end of the apartment was a page-boy dressed as Cupid, singing love-songs. In the group of listeners lolled the languid king. Portsmouth sat near, fanning the passion of a poor young fool, who hung about her like a moth; but Charles was not a lover to be spurred. As Portsmouth played her ruse the more openly a contemptuous smile flitted over the proud, dark face of the king, and he only fondled his lap-dog with indifferent heed for all those flatterers and foot-lickers and curry-favours hovering round royalty.

Barillon, the French ambassador, pricked up his ears, I can tell you, when Chaffinch, the king's man, came back with word that His Majesty was ready to hear M. Radisson.

"Now, lad, move about and keep your eyes open and your mouth shut!" whispers M. Radisson as he left me.

Barillon would have followed to the king's group, but His Majesty looked up with a quiet insolence that sent the ambassador to another circle. Then a page-boy touched my arm.

"Master Stanhope?" he questioned.

"Yes," said I.

"Come this way," and he led to a tapestried corner, where sat the queen and her ladies.

Mistress Hortense stood behind the royal chair.

Queen Catherine extended her hand for my salute.

"Her Majesty is pleased to ask what has become of the sailor-lad and his bride," said Hortense.

"Hath the little Puritan helped to get them married right?" asked the queen, with the soft trill of a foreign tongue.

"Your Majesty," said I, "the little Puritan holds back."

"It is as you thought," said Queen Catherine, looking over her shoulder to Hortense.

"Would another bridesmaid do?" asked the queen.

Laughing looks passed among the ladies.

"If the bridesmaid were Mistress Hillary, Your Majesty," I began.

"Hortense hath been to see them."

I might have guessed. It was like Hortense to seek the lonely pair.

"Here is the king. We must ask his advice," said the queen.

At the king's entrance all fell back and I managed to whisper to Hortense what we had learned the night before.

"Here are news," smiled His Majesty. "Your maid of the north is Osmond's daughter! The lands young Lieutenant Blood wants are hers!"

At that were more looks among the ladies.

"And faith, the lieutenant asks for her as well as the lands," said the king.

Hortense had turned very white and moved a little forward.

"We may not disturb our loyal subject's possession. What does Osmond's daughter say?" questioned the king.

Then Hortense took her fate in her hands.

"Your Majesty," she said, "if Osmond's daughter did not want the lands, it would not be necessary to disturb the lieutenant."

"And who would find a husband for a portionless bride?" asked King Charles.

"May it please Your Majesty," began Hortense; but the words trembled unspoken on her lips.

There was a flutter among the ladies. The queen turned and rose. A half-startled look of comprehension came to her face. And out stepped Mistress Hortense from the group behind.

"Your Majesties," she stammered, "I do not want the lands——"

"Nor the lieutenant," laughed the king.

"Your Majesties," she said. She could say no more.

But with the swift intuition of the lonely woman's loveless heart, Queen Catherine read in my face what a poor trader might not speak. She reached her hand to me, and when I would have saluted it like any dutiful subject, she took my hand in hers and placed Hortense's hand in mine.

Then there was a great laughing and hand-shaking and protesting, with the courtiers thronging round.

"Ha, Radisson," Barillon was saying, "you not only steal our forts—you must rifle the court and run off with the queen's maid!"

"And there will be two marriages at the sailor's wedding," said the queen.

It was Hortense's caprice that both marriages be deferred till we reached Boston Town, where she must needs seek out the old Puritan divine whom I had helped to escape so many years ago.

Before I lay down my pen, I would that I could leave with you a picture of M. Radisson, the indomitable, the victorious, the dauntless, living in opulence and peace!

But my last memory of him, as our ship sheered away for Boston Town, is of a grave man standing on the quay denouncing princes' promises and gazing into space.

M. Radisson lived to serve the Fur Company for many a year as history tells; but his service was as the flight of a great eagle, harried by a multitude of meaner birds.

THE END