past.

"Ha!" called one, reining his horse to its haunches, "did that
snivelling knave pass this way?"

"Do you mean this little gentleman?"

The officer galloped off. "Keep an eye open, Radisson," he shouted
over his shoulder.

"'Twere better shut," says M. Radisson softly; and at his name my blood
pricked to a jump.

Here was he of whom Ben Gillam told, the half-wild Frenchman, who had
married the royalist kinswoman of Eli Kirke; the hero of Spanish fights
and Turkish wars; the bold explorer of the north sea, who brought back
such wealth from an unknown land, governors and merchant princes were
spying his heels like pirates a treasure ship.

"'Tis more sport hunting than being hunted," he remarked, with an air
of quiet reminiscence.

His suit was fine-tanned, cream buckskin, garnished with gold braid
like any courtier's, with a deep collar of otter. Unmindful of
manners, I would have turned again to stare, but he bade me guide the
horse back to my home.

"Lest the hunters ask questions," he explained. "And what," he
demanded, "what doth a little cavalier in a Puritan hotbed?"

"I am even where God hath been pleased to set me, sir."

"'Twas a ticklish place he set thee when I came up."

"By your leave, sir, 'tis a higher place than I ever thought to know."

M. Radisson laughed a low, mellow laugh, and, vowing I should be a
court gallant, put me down before Eli Kirke's turnstile.

My uncle came stalking forth, his lips pale with rage. He had blazed
out ere I could explain one word.

"Have I put bread in thy mouth, Ramsay Stanhope, that thou shouldst
turn traitor? Viper and imp of Satan!" he shouted, shaking his
clinched fist in my face. "Was it not enough that thou wert utterly
bound in iniquity without persecuting the Lord's anointed?"

I took a breath.

"Where is Balaam?" he demanded, seizing me roughly.

"Sir," said I, "for leaving the room without leave, I pray you to flog
me as I deserve. As for the horse, he is safe and I hope far away
under the gentleman I helped down from the attic."

His face fell a-blank. M. Radisson dismounted laughing.

"Nay, nay, Eli Kirke, I protest 'twas to the lad's credit. 'Twas this
way, kinsman," and he told all, with many a strange-sounding, foreign
expression that must have put the Puritan's nose out of joint, for Eli
Kirke began blowing like a trumpet.

Then out comes Aunt Ruth to insist that M. Radisson share a haunch of
venison at our noonday m