"George Bremner," I replied, gripping his. "Let me bring you a chair."
I went inside, and when I returned he was turning over the leaves of my book.
"So you are a book lover?" he mused. "Well, I would to God more men were book lovers, for then the world would be a better place to live in, or rather, the men in it would be better to live among.
"Victor Hugo,—'Les Miserables'!—" he went on. "To my mind, the greatest of all novelists and the greatest of all novels."
He laid the book aside, and sought my confidences, not as a preacher, not as a pedagog, but as a friend; making no effort to probe my past, seeking no secrets; but all anxiety for my welfare; keen to know my ambitions, my aspirations, my pastimes and my habits of living; open and frank in telling me of himself. He was a man's man, with the experience of men that one gets only by years of close contact.
"For twenty years it has been God's will to allow me to travel up and down this beloved coast and minister to those who need me."
"You must like the work, sir," I ventured.
"Like it!—oh! yes, yes,—-I would not exchange my post for the City Temple of London, England."
"But such toil must be arduous, Mr. Auld, for you are not a young man and you do not look altogether a robust one."
He paused in meditation. "It is arduous, sometimes;—to-day I have talked to the men at eight camps and I have visited fourteen families at different points on my journey. But, if I were to stop, who would look after my beloved people in the ranches all up the coast; who would care for my easily-led, simple-hearted brethren in the logging camps, every one of whom knows me, confides in me and looks forward to my coming; not one of whom but would part with his coat for me, not one who would harm a hair of my head. I shall not stop, Mr. Bremner,—I have no desire to stop, not till God calls me.