You are a big hulk of a
man, and I'm nobody, but yet I've been close to you and yours in my
time--that's so, for sure."
"You've been close to me and mine in your time, eh? I didn't know that."
"No, you didn't know it. Nobody knew it--I've kept it to myself. Your
family wasn't all first-class--but no."
They soon reached the plain board-house, with the well-laid foundation of
stone, by the big Three Trees. Inside the little spare, undecorated room,
Tarboe looked round. It was all quiet and still enough. It was like a
lodge in the wilderness. Somehow, the atmosphere of it made him feel
apart and lonely. Perhaps that was a little due to the timbered ceiling,
to the walls with cedar scantlings showing, to the crude look of
everything-the head of a moose, the skins hanging down the sides of the
walls, the smell of the cedar, and the swift movement of a tame red
squirrel, which ran up the walls and over the floor and along the
chimney-piece, for Denzil avoided the iron stove so common in these new
cold lands, and remained faithful to a huge old-fashioned mantel.
Presently Denzil faced him, having closed the door. "I said I'd been near
to your family and you didn't believe me. Sit down, please to, and I'll
tell you my story.
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