Barebone wanted to make believe; he wanted to pretend that his path lay down a flowery way, knowing all the while that he had a hill to climb and Destiny stood at the top.
Colville had come at the right time.

It is the fate of some men to come at the right moment, just as it is the lot of others never to be there when they are wanted and their place is filled by a bystander and an opportunity is gone for ever.

Which is always a serious matter, for God only gives one or two opportunities to each of us.
Colville had come with his ready sympathy, not expressed as the world expresses its sympathy, in words, but by a hundred little self-abnegations.

He was always ready to act up to the principles of his companion for the moment or to act up to no principles at all should that companion be deficient.

Moreover, he never took it upon himself to judge others, but extended to his neighbour a large tolerance, in return for which he seemed to ask nothing.
"I have a carriage," he said, when on a broader cart-track they could walk side by side, "waiting for me at the roadside inn at the junction of the two roads.