Heralds of Empire

  HERALDS OF EMPIRE

  Being the Story of One Ramsay StanhopeLieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade

  by

  A. C. LAUT

  Author of Lords of the North

  Toronto, CanadaWilliam Briggs1902Entered according to Act of theParliament of Canada in the year 1902By A. C. LAUTat the Department of AgricultureAll rights reserved

  DEDICATED

  TO

  THE NEW WORLD NOBILITY

  ----Now I learned how the man must have felt when he set aboutconquering the elements, subduing land and sea and savagery. And inthat lies the Homeric greatness of this vast fresh New World of ours.Your Old World victor takes up the unfinished work left by generationsof men. Your New World hero begins at the pristine task. I pray you,who are born to the nobility of the New World, forget not the glory ofyour heritage; for the place which Got hath given you in the history ofthe race is one which men must hold in envy when Roman patrician andNorman conqueror and robber baron are as forgotten as the kingly linesof old Egypt.----

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  Foreword

  PART I

  I. What are King-Killers? II. I rescue and am rescued III. Touching Witchcraft IV. Rebecca and Jack Battle Conspire V. M. Radisson Again

  PART II

  VI. The Roaring Forties VII. M. de Radisson Acts VIII. M. de Radisson Comes to his Own IX. Visitors X. The Cause of the Firing XI. More of M. Radisson's Rivals XII. M. Radisson begins the Game XIII. The White Darkness XIV. A Challenge XV. The Battle not to the Strong XVI. We seek the Inlanders XVII. A Bootless Sacrifice XVIII. Facing the End XIX. Afterward XX. Who the Pirates were XXI. How the Pirates came XXII. We leave the North Sea

  PART III

  XXIII. A Change of Partners XXIV. Under the Aegis of the Court XXV. Jack Battle again XXVI. At Oxford XXVII. Home from the Bay XXVIII. Rebecca and I fall out XXIX. The King's Pleasure

  ILLUSTRATION

  Radisson's Map

  HERALDS OF EMPIRE

  FOREWORD

  I see him yet--swarthy, straight as a lance, keen as steel, in his eyesthe restless fire that leaps to red when sword cuts sword. I see himyet--beating about the high seas, a lone adventurer, tracking forestwastes where no man else dare go, pitting his wit against the intrigueof king and court and empire. Prince of pathfinders, prince ofpioneers, prince of gamesters, he played the game for love of the game,caring never a rush for the gold which pawns other men's souls. Howmuch of good was in his ill, how much of ill in his good, let his lifedeclare! He played fast and loose with truth, I know, till all theworld played fast and loose with him. He juggled with empires as withpuppets, but he died not a groat the richer, which is better recordthan greater men can boast.

  Of enemies, Sieur Radisson had a-plenty, for which, methinks, he hadthat lying tongue of his to thank. Old France and New France, OldEngland and New England, would have paid a price for his head; butPierre Radisson's head held afar too much cunning for any hang-dog ofan assassin to try "fall-back, fall-edge" on him. In spite of all themalice with which his enemies fouled him living and dead, SieurRadisson was never the common buccaneer which your cheap pamphleteershave painted him; though, i' faith, buccaneers stood high enough in myday, when Prince Rupert himself turned robber and pirate of the highseas. Pierre Radisson held his title of nobility from the king; so didall those young noblemen who went with him to the north, as may be seenfrom M. Colbert's papers in the records _de la marine_. Nor was thedisembarking of furs at Isle Percee an attempt to steal M. de laChesnaye's cargo, as slanderers would have us believe, but a way ofescape from those vampires sucking the life-blood of New France--thefarmers of the revenue. Indeed, His Most Christian Majesty himselfcommanded those robber rulers of Quebec to desist from meddling withthe northern adventurers. And if some gentleman who has never beenfarther from city cobblestones than to ride afield with the hounds ortake waters at foreign baths, should protest that no maid was ever inso desolate a case as Mistress Hortense, I answer there are to-day manyin the same region keeping themselves pure as pond-lilies in a brackishpool, at the forts of their fathers and husbands in the fur-tradingcountry. [1]

  And as memory looks back to those far days, there is another--a poor,shambling, mean-spoken, mean-clad fellow, with the scars of convictgyves on his wrists and the dumb love of a faithful spaniel in hiseyes. Compare these two as I may--Pierre Radisson, the explorer withfame like a meteor that drops in the dark; Jack Battle, thewharf-rat--for the life of me I cannot tell which memory grips the more.

  One played the game, the other paid the pawn. Both were misunderstood.One took no thought but of self; the other, no thought of self at all.But where the great man won glory that was a target for envy, the poorsailor lad garnered quiet happiness.

  [1] In confirmation of which reference may be called to the daughter ofGovernor Norton in Prince of Wales Fort, north of Nelson. Hearnereports that the poor creature died from exposure about the time of herfather's death, which was many years after Mr. Stanhope had written thelast words of this record.--_Author_.