Heralds of Empire

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Heralds of Empire

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Heralds of Empire, by Agnes C. Laut
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Title: Heralds of Empire Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade
Author: Agnes C. Laut

Release Date: April 15, 2006 [eBook #18182]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HERALDS OF EMPIRE
Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade
by
A. C. LAUT
Author of Lords of the North

Toronto, Canada William Briggs 1902 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1902 By A. C. LAUT at the Department of Agriculture All rights reserved

DEDICATED
TO
THE NEW WORLD NOBILITY

----Now I learned how the man must have felt when he set about conquering the elements, subduing land and sea and savagery. And in that lies the Homeric greatness of this vast fresh New World of ours. Your Old World victor takes up the unfinished work left by generations of 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 of your heritage; for the place which Got hath given you in the history of the race is one which men must hold in envy when Roman patrician and Norman conqueror and robber baron are as forgotten as the kingly lines of 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 eyes the restless fire that leaps to red when sword cuts sword. I see him yet--beating about the high seas, a lone adventurer, tracking forest wastes where no man else dare go, pitting his wit against the intrigue of king and court and empire. Prince of pathfinders, prince of pioneers, 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. How much of good was in his ill, how much of ill in his good, let his life declare! He played fast and loose with truth, I know, till all the world played fast and loose with him. He juggled with empires as with puppets, but he died not a groat the richer, which is better record than greater men can boast.
Of enemies, Sieur Radisson had a-plenty, for which, methinks, he had that lying tongue of his to thank. Old France and New France, Old England and New England, would have paid a price for his head; but Pierre Radisson's head held afar too much cunning for any hang-dog of an assassin to try "fall-back, fall-edge" on him. In spite of all the malice with which his enemies fouled him living and dead, Sieur Radisson was never the common buccaneer which your cheap pamphleteers have painted him; though, i' faith, buccaneers stood high enough in my day, when Prince Rupert himself turned robber and pirate of the high seas. Pierre Radisson held his title of nobility from the king; so did all those young noblemen who went with him to the north, as may be seen from M. Colbert's papers in the records de la marine. Nor was the disembarking of furs at Isle Percée an attempt to steal M. de la Chesnaye's cargo, as slanderers would have us believe, but a way of escape from those vampires sucking the life-blood of New France--the farmers of the revenue. Indeed, His Most Christian Majesty himself commanded those robber rulers of Quebec to desist from meddling with the northern adventurers. And if some gentleman who has never