“We wanted to delay the feast till midnight,” explains Groseillers.

“And at midnight in trooped every man, woman, and brat of the encampment.  The padre takes a tom-tom and stands at one end of the lodge beating a very knave of a rub-a-dub and shouting at the top of his voice:  ’Eat, brothers, eat!  Bulge the eye, swell the coat, loose the belt!  Eat, brothers, eat!’ Chouart stands at the boiler ladling out joints faster than an army could gobble.  Within an hour every brat lay stretched and the women were snoring asleep where they crouched.  From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan!  But Chouart keeps ladling out the meat.  Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other end of the lodge, and begins to beat and yell:  ’Stuff, brudders, stuff!  Vat de gut zperets zend, gast not out!  Eat, braves, eat!’ And the padre cuts the capers of a fiend on coals.  Still the warriors eat!  Still the drums beat!  Still the meat is heaped!  Then, one brave bowls over asleep with his head on his knees!  Another warrior tumbles back!  Guards sit bolt upright sound asleep as a stone!”

“What did you put in the meat, Pierre?” asked Groseillers absently.

Radisson laughed.

“Do you mind, Chouart,” he asked, “how the padre wanted to put poison in the meat, and the Dutchman wouldn’t let him?  Then the Dutchman wanted to murder them all in their sleep, and the padre wouldn’t let him?”

Both men laughed.

“And the end?” asked Jean.

“We tied the squealing pig at the door for sentinel, broke ice with our muskets, launched the canoe, and never stopped paddling till we reached Three Rivers.” [1]

At that comes a loud sally of laughter from the sailors at the far end of the hall.  Godefroy, the English trader, is singing a rhyme of All Souls’ Day, and Allemand, the French pilot, protests.

  “Soul!  Soul!  For a soul-cake! 
  One for Peter, two for Paul,
  Three for——.”

But La Chesnaye shouts out for the knaves to hold quiet.  Godefroy bobs his tipstaff, and bawls on: 

  “Soul!  Soul!  For an apple or two! 
  If you’ve got no apples, nuts will do! 
  Out with your raisins, down with your gin! 
  Give me plenty and I’ll begin.”

M. Radisson looks down the hall and laughs.  “By the saints,” says he softly, “a man loses the Christian calendar in this land!  ’Tis All Souls’ Night!  Give the men a treat, La Chesnaye.”

But La Chesnaye, being governor, must needs show his authority, and vows to flog the knave for impudence.  Turning over benches in his haste, the merchant falls on Godefroy with such largesse of cuffs that the fellow is glad to keep peace.

The door blows open, and with a gust of wind a silent figure blows in.  ’Tis Le Borgne, the one-eyed, who has taken to joining our men of a merry night, which M. de Radisson encourages; for he would have all the Indians come freely.