Bob Skinny then branched off into denunciation of the other negroes at Deerchase, to whom he fancied himself as much superior as if he were a being on a higher planet. There was war to the knife between them naturally, which was very much heightened by Bob’s being a “backslider.� Bob had been in the habit of “gittin’ ’ligion� regularly once a year at the revival meetings until Skelton took him to Europe. As the result of his “trabels� he had taken up the notion, which was not entirely unknown among his betters, that it was more elegant and recherché to be without a religion than to have one. Consequently, Bob returned full of infinite contempt for the Hard-shell Baptists, the shouting Methodists, and all the other religions that flourished among the negroes.
“You see, Miss Sylvy,� he explained argumentatively, “now I done see de worl’ an’ kin read an’ wrote an’ play on de fluke, what I want wid dis heah nigger ’ligion? I’se a philosopher.� Bob brought this out magnificently. “I say ter dem niggers, ‘What is it in ’ligion? Nuttin’ ’tall. What is it in philosophy? De truf, de whole truf, an’ nuttin’ but de truf.’ I ain’ seen none on ’em yit kin answer my argufyin’.�
After a while old Tom and Skelton came into the greenhouse, where Bob was still holding forth and giving the botanical names of the plants according to his own vernacular, but Bob shut up promptly as soon as Skelton appeared. Sylvia’s hands were full of flowers, given her by Lewis. The two had got very intimate now, and Lewis wore an air of boyish triumph. It was not worth while for Skelton to offer her any flowers if he had desired, she had so many.
They had walked over from Belfield across the bridge, and when they started to return Skelton and Lewis walked with them, Lewis still hanging about Sylvia, so that Skelton, who had meant to walk home with her, was entirely thrown out. On the way they met Bulstrode lumbering across the lawn with a book in his hand. Sylvia stopped and spoke to him pleasantly. He remained looking after her, watching her slight figure as she went across the bridge, still gallantly escorted by Lewis.
“I wonder if she would have jilted Skelton as Mrs. Blair did,� he thought.
CHAPTER IX.
The days passed on quickly enough at Deerchase, but not very satisfactorily. Skelton took eagerly to the racing scheme, and, with a little diplomacy on each side, a match was arranged for the spring meeting between Jaybird and Alabaster. Skelton himself did not appear at all in the transaction; it was conducted solely between Miles Lightfoot, the factotum, and Blair himself. With superior judgment to Blair, Skelton did not by any means regard the match as settled; he preferred to wait until it was run. But he took the most intense interest in it, and the thought of paying Blair off for his folly and presumption was agreeable enough to him. Then, this new amusement gave him something to do, for the work that he would have done continually eluded him. He spent many solitary hours in the great, beautiful library with piles of books and manuscript before him, and when a knock came at the door he was apt to be found pen in hand, as if hard at work. But many of those solitary hours were spent in a horrible idleness—horrible because he felt the time was slipping by and nothing was being done.
Not even Bulstrode knew of those long days of depression, or that Miles Lightfoot, with his swagger and his continual boasting that Blair was to be driven off the turf altogether, was in the nature of a relief to an overstrained mind. Miles Lightfoot was a continual offense to Bulstrode, who was disgusted at seeing books and papers and everything swept off the library table to make room for racing calendars and all of Miles’s paraphernalia.
As for Lewis, his mind seemed to have taken a sudden start. He had been thrown with Skelton as he never had been before in his life, and from a dim wonder what Skelton’s position to him was, came another wonder as to his own position at Deerchase.
Apparently nothing could be more fixed or agreeable. The servants called him “little marse,� and seemed to regard him as their future master; he had the run of the house, the stables, the gardens, and nobody questioned his right. But Skelton was not only no relation to him, but not even his guardian. And then he had not made friends with any boy in the county, except Hilary Blair, and Hilary never came to Deerchase, nor had he ever been to Newington. Indeed, as Lewis thought, with tears starting to his eyes, the only real friend he had in the world was Sylvia Shapleigh. Her kindness made a powerful impression upon his affectionate nature. He loved her the more because he had so few things to love. He sometimes determined that he would ask Mr. Bulstrode, or perhaps even Mr. Skelton, why he had no boy friends, but he never did it when he thought he would.