Moreover, there was a quiet jollity and a bluff honesty about him which was undoubtedly attractive both to men and women.

Above all, he was a well-informed, experienced man, and a gentleman, in a country in which both were rare.

Each week Silas Croft came to rely more and more on him, and allowed things to pass more and more into his hands.
"I'm getting old, Niel," he said to him one night; "I'm getting very old; the grasshopper is becoming a burden to me: and I'll tell you what it is, my boy," laying his hand affectionately upon John's shoulder, "I have no son of my own, and you must be a son to me, as my dear Bessie has been a daughter." John looked up into the kindly, handsome face, crowned with its fringe of snowy hair, and at the keen eyes set deep in it beneath the overhanging brows, and thought of his old father who was long since dead; and somehow he was moved, and his own eyes filled with tears.
"Ay, Mr.Croft," he said, taking the old man's hand, "that I will to the best of my ability." "Thank you, my boy, thank you.

I don't like talking much about these things, but, as I said, I am getting old, and the Almighty may require my account any hour, and if He does I rely on you to look after these two girls.

It is a wild country this, and one never knows what will happen in it from day to day, and they may want help.