CHAPTER XXII

WE LEAVE THE NORTH SEA

So Sieur Radisson must fit out a royal flotilla to carry Mistress Hortense to the French Habitation.  And gracious acts are like the gift horse:  you must not look them in the mouth.  For the same flotilla that brought Hortense brought all M. Picot’s hoard of furs.  Coming down the river, lying languidly back among the peltries of the loaded canoe, Hortense, I mind, turned to me with that honest look of hers and asked why Sieur Radisson sent to fetch her in such royal state.

“I am but a poor beggar like your little Jack Battle,” she protested.

I told her of M. Radisson’s plans for entrance to the English court, and the fire that flashed to her eyes was like his own.

“Must a woman ever be a cat’s-paw to man’s ambitions?” she asked, with a gleam of the dark lights.  “Oh, the wilderness is different,” says Hortense with a sigh.  “In the wild land, each is for its own!  Oh, I love it!” she adds, with a sudden lighting of the depths in her eyes.

“Love—­what?”

“The wilderness,” says Hortense.  “It is hard, but it’s free and it’s pure and it’s true and it’s strong!”

And she sat back among the pillows.

When we shot through racing rapids—­“sauter les rapides,” as our French voyageurs say—­she sat up all alert and laughed as the spray splashed athwart.  Old Allemand, the pilot, who was steersman on this canoe, forgot the ill-humour of his gin thirst, and proffered her a paddle.

“Here, pretty thing,” says he, “try a stroke yourself!”

And to the old curmudgeon’s surprise she took it with a joyous laugh, and paddled half that day.

Bethink you who know what warm hearts beat inside rough buckskin whether those voyageurs were her slaves or no!  The wind was blowing; Mistress Hortense’s hair tossed in a way to make a man swear (vows, not oaths), and Allemand said that I paddled worse than any green hand of a first week.  At the Habitation we disembarked after nightfall to conceal our movements from the English.  After her arrival, none of us caught a glimpse of Mistress Hortense except of a Sunday at noon, but of her presence there was proof enough.  Did voices grow loud in the mess-room?  A hand was raised.  Some one pointed to the far door, and the voices fell.  Did a fellow’s tales slip an oath or two?  There was a hush.  Some one’s thumb jerked significantly shoulderwise to the door, and the story-teller leashed his oats for a more convenient season.

“Oh, lordy,” taunts an English prisoner out on parole one day, “any angels from kingdom come that you Frenchies keep meek as lambs?”

Allemand, not being able to explain, knocked the fellow flat.

It would scarce have been human nature had not some of the ruffians uttered slurs on the origin of such an one as Hortense found in so strange a case.  The mind that feedeth on carrion ever goeth with the large mouth, and for the cleansing of such natures I wot there is no better physic than our crew gave those gossips.  What the sailors did I say not.  Enough that broken heads were bound by our chirurgeon for the rest of the week.