Slowly they began to be more confidential.
"It's no place for a young man like you to be here," Bates observed with disfavour.
It was Sunday.

The two were sitting in front of the house in the sunshine, not because the sun was warm, but because it was bright; dressed, as they were, in many plies of clothes, they did not feel the cold, in flat, irregular shape the white lake lay beneath their hill.

On the opposite heights the spruce-trees stood up clear and green, as perfect often in shape as yews that are cut into old-fashioned cones.
"I was told that about the last place I was in, and the place before too," Trenholme laughed.

He did not seem to take his own words much to heart.
"Well, the station certainly wasn't much of a business," assented Bates; "and, if it's not rude to ask, where were ye before ?" "Before that--why, I was just going to follow my own trade in a place where there was a splendid opening for me; but my own brother put a stop to that.

He said it was no fit position for a young man like me.