Gilbert Parker

“ The step was human, he knew that, and it was a month since he and Pierre had heard any footsteps of man save their own. If is not true that men love each other better where there are few to love, because there are few and the heart is hungry. But it is true that men, in lonely places, where nature has had its way with them and cleared their souls of rubbish, know each other better in a day than they do in London town in a year. ”

“ A footstep on the clear air of night, in the hushed loneliness of the north, raises in a man's mind tremendous questioning. One half hour beside the fire and the cooking-pot decides the grave question—are we comrades or strangers for ever? You cannot pull the same blanket over you both, and tear apart the same strip of buffalo meat, if, having read each other by the light of the Great Fires, you find the plague-spot of the alien nature.
Lawless, therefore, had a moment of strange suspense, Pierre one of deep curiosity ”

“ If you had eyes like an Indian's you would also have seen that the path led away north to a great log-house called King's House, where traders of the Company lived, gathering furs to send away to Fort Albany for England, and distributing to the other ports, south and west, the yearly supplies which came by the Company's ship.
Lawless noticed that Pierre seemed to be listening intently, though his attitude was so careless. He kept silence, waiting like any true adventurer,—every man is that who is fit to live in the good north—and his patience had its reward. ”

“ And thou did'st promise, and thou dids't break thy promise, yet she forgave thee, and I forgave thee, for well we knew that thou would'st pay a heavy reckoning, and that in the hour when thou should'st cry to us, we might not come to thee; that in the days when age and sorrow and vast troubles should oppress thee, thou would'st long for the true and honest hearts who loved thee for thyself and not for aught thou could'st give or aught that thou wert, save as a man. ”

“ His soul sickened of the rank world, as he called it, and he came out to the Hudson's Bay country, leaving his estates in care of his nephew, but taking many stores and great chests of clothes and a ship load of furniture, instruments of music, more than a thousand books, some good pictures, and great stores of wine. And here he came and stayed, an officer of the Company, building King's House, and filling it with all the fine things he had brought with him, making in this far north a little palace in the wilderness. ”

“ And here he lived, his great heart growing greater in this wide sinewy world, King's House a place of pilgrimage for all the Company's men in the north; a noble gentleman in a sweet exile, loving what he could no more, what he did no more see. ”

“ Never prince had truer friend, and so in his best hours he thought himself, and if he ever was just and showed his better part, it was to the bold country gentleman who never minced praise or blame, but said his say, and devil take the end of it. ”

“ Pierre answered this. "Why do they swing the censers at the Mass?" he said. "Man has signs for memories, and one man seeing another's sign will remember his own."
Lawless smiled gravely, and presently said to Adderley: "You stay because you like it—at King's House?" ”