Adderley paused once more, and, after refilling his pipe in silence, continued:
“That was the heart of the thing. 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 shipload of furniture, instruments of music, more than a thousand books, some good pictures, and great stores of wine. 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. 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.
“Twice a year he went to that point yonder and blew this bugle, no man knew why or wherefore, year in, year out, till 1817. Then there came a letter to him with great seals, which began: ‘John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?’ There followed a score of sorrowful sentences, full of petulance, too, for it was as John York foretold, his prince longed for the ‘true souls’ whom he had cast off. But he called too late, for the neglected wife died from the shock of her prince’s longing message to her, and when, by the same mail, John York knew that, he would not go back to England to the King. But twice every year he went to yonder point and spoke out the King’s words to him: ‘John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?’ and gave the words of his own letter in reply: ‘King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on the trail of thy bugles.’ To this he added three calls of the bugle, as you have heard.”
Adderley handed the bugle to Lawless, who looked at it with deep interest and passed it on to Pierre. “When he died,” Adderley continued, “he left the house, the fittings, and the stores to the officers of the Company who should be stationed there, with a sum of money yearly, provided that twice in twelve months the bugle should be blown as you have heard it, and those words called out.”
“Why did he do that?” asked Lawless, nodding towards the point.
“Why do they swing the censers at the Mass?” interjected Pierre. “Man has signs for memories, and one man seeing another’s sign will remember his own.”
“You stay because you like it—at King’s House?” asked Lawless of Adderley.
The other stretched himself lazily to the fire and, “I am at home,” he said. “I have no cares. I had all there was of that other world; I’ve not had enough of this. You’ll come with me to King’s House to-morrow?” he added.
To their quick assent he rejoined: “You’ll never want to leave. You’ll stay on.”
To this Lawless replied, shaking his head: “I have a wife and child in England.”