"Forty winks is a fair allowance sometimes, Rege."
Reginald groaned. "Your pluck is worth a king's ransom, John. I wish I had it."
John began to whistle softly as he drew his waxed ends in and out.
"I declare, John, I can't fathom you!" and Reginald moved impatiently upon his couch. "You are invulnerable as Achilles. I never saw a fellow get so much comfort out of everything as you do, and yet your life is a steady grind. What does it all mean?"
"It means," said John softly, "that I am a Christ's man, and he has lifted me above the power of circumstances. Jesus is centre and circumference with me now, Rege.
"You were talking yesterday about some men wanting the earth. I own the earth, because it belongs to my Father,—the best part of it, you know,—there is a truer giving than by title deeds to material acres—and the world has grown very beautiful since my Father made me heir of all things through his Son. The birds' songs have a new note in them, and the sunlight is brighter, and there is a different blue in the sky. I'm monarch of all I survey because I get the good out of everything,—mere earthly possession doesn't amount to much, a man has to leave the finest estates behind him,—but I get the concentrated sweetness of it all wherever I am. It is God's world, you know, and he is my Father."
John was called away just then to attend to some gentlemen who had come to look at the horses, and Reginald waited for his return in vain. He heard his father's voice once, raised high in stormy wrath, then all was still again. Some time afterwards, through the leafy curtain of his veranda, he saw Mr. Hawthorne drive past with a face so distorted with passion that he shivered.
"There's been no end of a row this time," he soliloquized. "It is a mystery to me why John puts up with it. He's free to go when he chooses. I'm sure I'd clear out if I wasn't such a good-for-nothing. The governor is getting to be more like a bear than a human being, it's a dog's life for everybody unlucky enough to be under the same roof with him."
* * * * *
Down at the bend of the river a tall figure lay stretched upon the moss. The river laughed and the birds sang, but John Randolph's face was buried in his arms.