set him
singing Gammer Gurton's Needle, till the gentlemen were glad to put
down pennies for the company to drink healths.

By this I had enough of your gentleman bully's brawling, and I gave the
fellows the slip to meet Pierre Radisson at the General Council of
Hudson's Bay Adventurers to be held in John Horth's offices in Broad
Street. Our gentlemen adventurers were mighty jealous of their secrets
in those days. I think they imagined their great game-preserve a kind
of Spanish gold-mine safer hidden from public ken, and they held their
meetings with an air of mystery that pirates might have worn. For my
part, I do not believe there were French spies hanging round Horth's
office for knowledge of the Fur Company's doings, though the
doorkeeper, who gave me a chair in the anteroom, reported that a
strange-looking fellow with a wife as from foreign parts had been
asking for me all that day, and refused to leave till he had learned
the 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," confided
the 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 omen
to 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 and
begging of pardon. Then the councillors began to come: Arlington and
Ashley of the court, one of those Carterets, who had been on the Boston
Commission long ago and first induced M. Radisson to go to England, and
at last His Royal Highness the Duke of York, deep in conversation with
my 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 a
good Englishman once before."

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

"Till he undo the evil he has done--till he capture back all that he
took from us--then," says Sir John cautiously, "then we must consider
whether 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