But at night the cares of the campaign were laid aside. The partners dressed for dinner--ruffles and gold lace and knee breeches with gold-clasped garters and silver-buckled shoes. Over the richly laden dinner table was told many a yarn of hardship and danger and heroism in the Up Country. The rafters rang with laughter and applause and song. Outside the gates among the voyageurs the songs were French; inside among the partners, Scotch. When plates were cleared away, bagpipes of the beloved Highlands, and flutes, and violins struck up and “we danced till daylight,” records Rod. MacKenzie; or “we drank the ten gallon kegs empty,” confesses Henry; it was according to the man. Or when more wine than wisdom had flowed from the festive board, and plates were cleared, the jolly partners sometimes straddled wine kegs, chairs, benches, and “_sauted_,” as one relates it--shot the rapids from the dining table to the floor ending up a wild night with wild races astride anything from a broom to a paddle round and round the hall till daylight peeped through the barred windows, or pipers and fiddlers fell asleep, and the servants came to pilot the gay gentlemen to bed. Altogether, it wasn’t such a dull time--those two weeks’ holidays at Fort William--and such revel was only the foam (“bees’ wings” one journal calls it) of a life that was all strong wine. Outside the gates were the lees and the dregs of the life--riot and lust. It was part of the Nor’Westers’ policy to encourage a spirit of bluster and brag and bullying among the servants. Bluff was all very well, but the partners saw to it that the men could back up their bluff with brawn. Wrestling matches and boxing bouts were encouraged between the Scotch clerks and the French voyageurs. These took place inside the walls. Half the partners were Catholics and all the voyageurs. The Catholic Church did not purpose losing these souls to Satan. Not for nothing had the good bishop of Quebec listened to confessions from returned voyageurs. When he picked out a chaplain for Fort William, he saw to it that the man chosen should be a man of herculean frame and herculean strength. The good father was welcomed to the Fort, given ample quarters and high precedence at table, but the Catholic partners weren’t quite sure how he would regard those prize fights. “Don’t go out of your apartments to-morrow! There’s to be a _régale_! There may be fighting,” they warned him. “I thank you,” says the priest politely, no doubt recalling the secrets of many a confessional.