After a while he turned and made some ordinary remark to Lewis, who answered him in the same way; but there was a sweet, ineffable change in their attitude one to the other. Nature had her rights, and she had vindicated herself. Lewis fondly thought the disgrace that he dreaded was forever removed from him, and no longer struggled against that feeling of a son for his father that had been steadily growing in his breast, although as steadily repressed, ever since he had known really who he was.
As for Skelton, he walked down towards the river in a kind of ecstasy. The boy’s heart was his. No lover winning his mistress ever felt a more delicious triumph.
As he strolled along by the cedar hedges near the river, and the masses of crape myrtle and syringa, that could withstand the salt air and the peevish winds of winter, he began to consider all his new sources of happiness. There was the deep, tumultuous joy of Sylvia’s love, and the profound tenderness he felt for Lewis, that had only grown the more for the stern subduing of it; and there was that awakened creative power which made him feel like a new man. And the spectre of his hatred of Blair had been laid at least for a time—no one can hate the being one has just benefitted. And then, looking about him, he felt that Deerchase was not a possession to be despised. He had seen too much real grandeur to overestimate the place; yet it was singularly beautiful, not only with the beauty of green old gardens and giant trees that clustered around the stately house, and noble expanses of velvety turf and dewy woods, but it had that rich beauty of a great, productive, landed estate. Nature was not only lovely, but she was beneficent. Those green fields brought forth lavishly year after year. There was room, and work, and food for all. Skelton saw, half a mile inland, the negroes weeding out the endless ranks of the corn, then as high as a man’s head, and flaunting its splendid green banners magnificently in the August air. The toilers were merry, and sang as they worked; two or three other negroes were half working, half idling about the grounds, in careless self-content; Bob Skinny sunned himself under a tree, with his “fluke� across his knee; and the peacock strutted up and down haughtily on the velvet grass. The river was all blue and gold, and a long summer swell broke upon the sandy shore. All the beauty of the scene seemed to enter into Skelton’s soul. It was exactly attuned to his feelings. He did not long for mountain heights and lonely peaks or wind-lashed waves; this sweet scene of peace and plenty was in perfect harmony with him.
He was too happy to work then, but he felt within him a strange power to work within a few hours. As soon as night came he would go to the library; those long evenings of slothful dreaming and reading and painful idleness were no more; he would manage to do a full stint of work before midnight. He had written in the morning to Sylvia that he would not see her that day. He had apprehended that after his interview with Blair he might not be in the most heavenly frame of mind, but, on the contrary, he was so unexpectedly happy that he longed to go to Belfield then. But Sylvia would not be ready to see him; she would be taking a midday nap after her morning sail; he would go at his usual hour in the afternoon and surprise her.
He continued to stroll about, his straw hat in his hand, that he might feel the soft south wind upon his forehead, and it reminded him of when he was a boy. How closely Lewis resembled him!—his ways, his tastes, were all the same, except healthier than his own had been. He never remembered the time when he had not withdrawn himself haughtily from his companions. Lewis was as proud and reserved as he had been, though from an altogether different motive; for with poor Lewis it was the reserve of a wounded soul. Skelton remembered well how, in his boyhood, he had lived in his boat, just as Lewis did, spending long hours lying flat in the bottom, merely exerting himself enough to keep the boat from overturning, and going far down into the bay, where the water was dark and troubled, instead of being blue and placid as it was in the broad and winding river.
All day until five o’clock the beauty held. At that time Skelton came out on the stone porch to take his way across the bridge to Belfield. The sky had not lost its perfect blueness, but great masses of dense white clouds were piling up, and a low bank of dun color edged the western sky. The wind, too, was rising, and far down, beyond Lone Point, the white caps were tumbling over each other, and the wide bay was black and restless. Just as Skelton came out he saw the one snow-white sail of Lewis’s boat rounding Lone Point.
Bulstrode was sitting on the porch, snuffing at the rich tea roses, and with the inevitable book in his hand; but he looked uneasy.
“I wish,� he said to Skelton, “you’d speak to the boy about going out in that boat in all sorts of weather. There’s a storm coming up outside, and nothing will please him more than to be caught in it, and to come home and tell you how near he came to being drowned. You taught him to manage a boat much too well. He takes all manner of risks, by Jove!�
“He is venturesome to the last degree,� replied Skelton, “and I cannot make him otherwise. But, as you know�—Skelton smiled, and hesitated a moment—“I suffer all sorts of palpitations when he is in danger. Yet, if he shirked it, I should detest him.� Bulstrode raised his shaggy brows significantly; he knew all this well enough without Skelton’s telling him. In a moment Skelton added:
“It has also been a satisfaction to me to see this spirit in him, for it indicates he will be a man of action. I entreat you, Bulstrode, if you should outlive me, never let him become a mere dreamer. I would rather see him squander every dollar that will be his, if the possession of it should make him a mere dilettante—what I have been so long, but which I shall never be again, by heaven!�