CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Silas Tomlin Finds Trouble
When Silas Tomlin reached home, he found his son reading a book. No word of salutation passed between them; Paul simply changed his position in the chair, and Silas grunted. They had no confidences, and they seemed to have nothing in common. As a matter of fact, however, Silas was very fond of this son, proud of his appearance—the lad was as neat as a pin, and fairly well-favoured,—and proud of his love for books. Unhappily, Silas was never able to show his affection and his fair-haired son never knew to his dying day how large a place he occupied in his father's heart. Miserly Silas was with money, but his love for his son was boundless. It destroyed or excluded every other sentiment or emotion that was in conflict with it. His miserliness was for his son's sake, and he never put away a dollar without a feeling of exultation; he rejoiced in the fact that it would enable his son to live more comfortably than his father had cared to live. Silas loved money, not for its own sake, but for the sake of his son.
Mrs. Absalom would have laughed at such a statement. The social structure of the Southern people, and the habits and traditions based thereon, were of such a character that a great majority could not be brought to believe that it was possible for parsimony to exist side by side with any of the finer feelings. All the conditions and circumstances, the ability to command leisure, the very climate itself, promoted hospitality, generosity, open-handedness, and that fine spirit of lavishness that seeks at any cost to give pleasure to others. Popular opinion, therefore, looked with a cold and suspicious eye on all manifestations of selfishness.
But Silas Tomlin's parsimony, his stinginess, had no selfish basis. He was saving not for himself, but for his son, in whom all his affections and all his ambitions were centered. He had reared Paul tenderly without displaying any tenderness, and if the son had speculated at all in regard to the various liberties he had been allowed, or the indulgent methods that had been employed in his bringing up, he would have traced them to the carelessness and indifference of his father, rather than to the ardent affection that burned unseen and unmarked in Silas's bosom.
He had never, by word or act, intentionally wounded the feelings of his son; he had never thrown himself in the path of Paul's wishes. There was a feeling in Shady Dale that Silas was permitting his son to go to the dogs; whereas, as a matter of fact, no detective was ever more alert. Without seeming to do so, he had kept an eye on all Paul's comings and goings. When the lad's desires were reasonable, they were promptly gratified; when they were unreasonable, their gratification was postponed until they were forgotten. Books Paul had in abundance. Half of the large library of Meredith Tomlin had fallen to Silas, and the other half to Pulaski Tomlin, and the lad had free access to all.
Paul was very fond of his Uncle Pulaski and his Aunt Fanny, and he was far more familiar with these two than he was with his father. His association with his uncle and aunt was in the nature of a liberal education. It was Pulaski Tomlin who really formed Paul's character, who gathered together all the elements of good that are native to the mind of a sensitive lad, and moulded them until they were strong enough to outweigh and overwhelm the impulses of evil that are also native to the growing mind. Thus it fell out that Paul was a young man to be admired and loved by all who find modest merit pleasing.
When his father arrived at home on that particular evening, as has been noted, Paul was reading a book. He changed his position, but said nothing. After awhile, however, he felt something was wrong. His father, instead of seating himself at the table, and consulting his note-book, walked up and down the floor.
"What is wrong? Are you ill?" Paul asked after awhile.