THE HOTEL IN BONAVENTURE STREET.
It was nine o'clock on a Monday evening in the fourth week of June, and
I was sitting, as was my nightly custom, in the cozy coffee room of the
modest hostelry where I had taken lodgings when I first came to Quebec.
This was the Hotel Silver Lily, kept by Monsieur Jules Ragoul and
madame, his wife. It was a quiet little place in Bonaventure Street,
which was one of the oldest and narrowest thoroughfares of the lower
town.
I was alone in the room, save for an elderly man who was sound asleep in
a big chair on the far side of the table, remote from the candlelight.
He had been there when I entered, and I could not recall having seen him
before about the hotel; but of this I was not certain, since his face
was in shadow and half-covered by his hat. In the adjoining bar, to
judge from the clinking of glasses and bottles and the hum of
conversation, Madame Ragoul was busy with a few customers. The evening
was warm, and as I sat by the open window sucking at my long pipe, I
could hear on the one side the occasional challenge of the sentries high
up on the ramparts of the citadel. From the other direction came the
boisterous voices of boatmen and sailors down by the quays of the St.
Lawrence.
Two long months had passed since my arrival in Quebec. I was heartily
tired of its noisy, brawling life, hungry for the solitude of my native
wilderness. At first I had found much to see and enjoy, but the novelty
soon wore off. I had but few acquaintances in the town, and none of them
were to my fancy. I preferred the seclusion of the hotel, and the
company of the honest little Frenchman and his wife. Not so with
Baptiste. He had fallen in with a loose set of his own kind, and
frequented the low taverns by the riverside. That very evening I had
brought him home helplessly drunk, and seen him safely abed.
But before I go on, if you please, a word or two concerning the business
that brought me to Quebec. I have spoken of Griffith Hawke, the factor
of Fort Royal. He was a man of fifty-odd years, simple-hearted, absorbed
in his duties, and with not a spark of romance or sentiment in his
being. Would you believe that such a one could think of marriage? Yet it
was even so! A wife he suddenly resolved to have, and he sent for one to
the head office in London, as was a common custom in those days. Many a
woman was sent out by the company to cheer the lonely lot of their
employees.
To be brief, a correspondence was carried on for two years between Fort
Royal and London--that meant but a couple of letters on either side--and
the result of it was that I was now in Quebec to meet the bride of
Griffith Hawke and escort her to her distant home.
She was due in the early summer, being a passenger on the ship Good
Hope. I was to put her in care of Madame Ragoul, and we were both to
sail for Hudson's Bay at the first opportunity in one of the company's
vessels. The factor had not been able to leave his post for so long a
time, and he had sent me on this errand with evident reluctance. He
would meet us at Fort York, where there was a priest to perform the
marriage ceremony.
As I said before, the task was not to my liking. Love was a word without
meaning to me. I knew nothing of women, and had reached the age of
twenty-five without giving a thought to the other sex. I was completely
ignorant of the purport of the letters that had passed between Griffith
Hawke and the head office, and as I never questioned him about
particulars, he never vouchsafed me any. I naturally expected to meet a
middle-aged dame who would make a suitable partner for the prosaic
factor, and would adapt herself to the crude life and customs of the
lonely trading post.
A mission of adventure and deadly peril would have been more to my
taste, but this strange enterprise was put upon me in the capacity of a
company's servant, and I was resolved to carry out my instructions to
the best of my ability. I was pondering the matter as I sat in the hotel
that June night, and reflecting, with some relief, that I should not be
much longer detained in Quebec, for the Good Hope was expected in port
at any day or hour.
Having finished my third pipe, I knocked the ashes out gently so as not
to disturb my still sleeping companion. I rose to my feet, stifling a
yawn, and just then a man entered the room from the bar, closing the
door behind him. While he stood hesitating, I took in his appearance by
a brief glance. He was tall, slim and wiry, with tawny yellow hair worn
long, and thick, drooping mustache. His eyes were of a cold steel-blue,
and his face, though very handsome, had something sinister and fierce
about it. From his attire I judged him at once to be a polished man of
the world, who had seen other lands than the Canadas. He wore a
lace-trimmed coat of buff, breeches of the same material, top boots of
tanned buckskin, and abroad felt hat of a claret color. For the rest, a
sword dangled at his side, and a brace of pistols peeped from his belt.
He looked about fifty, and by his flushed countenance I saw that he was
more or less under the influence of liquor.
I noticed all this even before the man drew closer. Then seeing me
clearly in the light shed from the candles, he gave a sudden start. The
color left his cheeks, and he stared at me with an unmistakable
expression of bewildered surprise, of something like sharp fear and
guilt. I never doubted that he mistook me for another person.
"Have we met before, sir?" I asked courteously.
The stranger laughed, and his agitation was gone.
"Pardon my rudeness," he replied. "I had a spasm of pain, to which I am
subject at times, but it has passed off." He pointed to my blue capote
with brass buttons--the summer uniform of the company. "You are a Hudson
Bay man," he added, "and I am another. That is a bond of friendship
between us; is it not so?"
His manner was so captivating that I forgot my first unfavorable
impression cf him; moreover, I felt flattered by the condescension of so
fine a gentleman. I was easily induced to state my name and the position
I held at Fort Royal.
"We shall meet again," he cried, "for I shall be in those parts ere the
summer is over."
"Are you indeed in the company's service?" I asked. "You do not wear--"
"The uniform?" he interrupted, with a touch of hauteur. "No; my duties
are not the same as yours. But I will be as frank as you have been--"
He handed me a folded paper. "Read that," he said in a confidential
tone, leaning over me and exhaling the fumes of wine.
I opened the document, and scanned it briefly. The writing showed,
beyond a doubt, that my new acquaintance was in the secret service of
the Hudson Bay Company, and that he stood high in favor of the governor
himself. I was glad that he had revealed as much to me--a thing he would
not have done but for his potations; for it had dawned on me a moment
before that I had been indiscreet to unbosom myself so freely to a
stranger, who, for aught I knew to the contrary, might be a spy or an
agent of the Northwest Company. I handed the paper back to him, and he
buttoned it tightly under his coat.
"Is that credential enough for you?" he asked.
"I am more than satisfied," I replied.
"Then permit me to introduce myself. I am Captain Myles Rudstone, at
your service--ex-officer of Canadian Volunteers, formerly of London and
Paris, and now serving under the same banner as yourself. In short, I am
a man of the world."
"I judged as much, sir," said I.
"Your perception does you credit," he exclaimed.
"I see that you are a gentleman. And now let us drink together to
celebrate our first meeting."
"With all my heart!" I replied cordially.
I expected that he would ring the bell for madame, but instead of that
he strode around the table to the sleeping stranger in the chair, and
clapped him heavily on the shoulder. The man was roused instantly, and
as he sprang to his feet I saw that he was tall and middle aged. His
face was shrewd and intelligent, clean-shaven, and slightly wrinkled. He
wore a white neck-cloth, antiquated coat and breeches of rusty black,
and gray stockings with silver buckles at the knee; a cluster of seals
dangled from his watch chain, and his fingers were long and white.
"What the devil do you mean by striking me, sir?" he demanded angrily.
"I merely gave you a tap," Captain Rudstone replied coolly. "I wish you
to join this gentleman and myself in a drink."
"I have no desire to drink."
"But I say you shall!"
"And I say I shall not. I am a man of peace, but by Heavens, sir, I will
swallow no affront tamely."
"I believe you are a spy--an emissary of the Northwest Company," cried
the captain; and I knew by his manner that he had really suspected the
stranger from the first.
"Then you lie, sir!" declared the man in black. "Here is my card."
He tossed a slip of pasteboard on the table, and picking it up, I read
the following:
"CHRISTOPHER BURLEY.
"For Parchmont and Tolliver, Solicitors,
"Lincoln's Inn, London."
I handed the card to Captain Rudstone, and he glanced at it
disdainfully.
"A law clerk," he sneered. "But come, I will overlook your menial
position. I am not too proud to clink glasses with you."
"The boot is on the other leg, sir," cried the man of law. "I pick my
company, and I refuse to drink with a swashbuckler and a roysterer."
"You shall drink with me," roared the captain, drawing his blade, "or I
will teach you civil manners with the point of this!"
I judged that it was time to interfere.
"Captain Rudstone, you are behaving unseemly," said I. "There is no
cause for a quarrel. You will think better of it in the morning. I beg
you to drop the matter. Let us retire to the next room and have our
friendly drink."
I thought he would have run me through for my interference, so blackly
did he glare at me; but the next instant he sheathed his sword and
laughed.
"You are right," he said. "I have had a drop too much for the first time
for months. I offer my apologies to the offended law. Come, Mr. Carew, I
will take another cup to your good health."
As he spoke he approached the door, and as I followed him the law clerk
stopped me by a touch on the shoulder.
"My thanks to you, young gentleman," he said. "I like your face, and I
put no blame on you for what has occurred. A word with you, if I may. I
see that you are in the service of the Hudson Bay Company."
"Yes," I assented.
"And do you know the Canadas?"
"As well as you know London," I replied.
His face brightened at that.
"I came over a month ago on important business," he went on, "and I have
been lately in Montreal and Ottawa. Did you ever, in the course of your
wanderings, hear of a certain Osmund Maiden? He landed in Quebec from
England in the year 1787."
"I never heard the name, sir," I answered, after a moment's thought.
As I spoke I looked toward the door, and encountered the gaze of
Captain Rudstone, who was standing in a listening attitude with his
hand on the latch. I scarcely knew him. His cheeks were colorless, his
lips were half-parted, and a sort of frozen horror was stamped on his
features. Had he been seized by another spasm of pain, I wondered, or
was there a deeper cause for his agitation?
"So you can give me no information?" said Christopher Burley, in a tone
of disappointment.
"I know nothing of the man you seek," I answered.
Just then the door was flung open, and Jules Ragoul burst excitedly into
the room.
"_Bonne nouvelles!_" he cried. "News, Monsieur Carew! Good news! The
Good Hope is in the river, and she will land her passengers early
to-morrow!"
All else was forgotten, and I eagerly questioned the little Frenchman.
When I was done with him I looked about for Captain Rudstone and the law
clerk. Both had vanished, and I saw them no more that night.