When he had finished dressing he crept out into the silent hall and softly tiptoed down the stairs. The front door was ajar, and, still aglow with his vast new joy, he passed out into the yard. The dewy lawn had a beauty he had never sensed before. The great trees, solemn and stately, lifted their fronded tops into the lowering mist. The air held the fragrance of flowers. Red and white roses besprent with dew bordered the walks, bloomed in big beds, and honeysuckles and morning-glories climbed the lattice of the veranda. Down the graveled walk, under the magnolias, the leaves of which touched his bare head, Paul strode, his step elastic, his whole being ablaze with mystic delight. Reaching the road, he took the nearest path up the mountain. He waved his arms; he ran; he jumped as he had jumped when a boy; he whistled; he sang; he wept; he prayed; he exulted. Higher and higher he mounted in the rarefied air, his feet slipping on the red-brown pine-needles and dry heather till he reached an open promontory where a flat ledge sharply jutted out over the gray void below. Like a fearless, winged creature he stood upon the edge of it. The eastern sky was taking on a tinge of lavender. Slowly this warmed into an ever-expanding sea of pink, beneath the breathless waves of which lay the palpitating sun. Paul stretched out his arms toward the light and stood as dumb and still as the gray boulders and gnarled trees behind him. He was athrob with a glorious sense of the Infinite, which seemed to enter his being like a flood at its height.
“Free! Free!” he shouted, as the tears burst from his eyes and streamed down his cheeks. “Forgiven, forgiven! I was blind and now I see! I stand on the fringe of the eternal and see with the eyes of truth. All is well with God and every created thing, vast and infinitesimal! O Lord, I thank Thee; with my whole being, which is spirit of Thy spirit and flesh of Thy flesh, I thank Thee! Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty! He is in me, and I am in Him!”
Paul covered his face with his hands and the hot tears trickled through his fingers. His body shook with sobs. Presently he became calmer, uncovered his face, and looked again toward the east. The day, like a blazing torrent, was leaping into endless space, lapping up with tongues of fire islands and continents of clouds. Raising his hands heavenward, Paul cried out, in a clear, firm voice that rebounded from the cliffs behind him:
“O God, my blessed Creator, Thou hast led me through the agony of travail, through the pits and caverns of sin and remorse to the foot of Thy throne. Dimly I see Thy veiled face. I hear the far-off hosts of eternal wisdom chanting the deathless song of Love. Take me—command me, body, mind, and soul! Burden me again, and yet again; torture me, afflict me; grind me as a filthy worm beneath the heel of Thy Law; but in the end give me this—this wondrous sense of Thee and transcendent knowledge of myself. Here, now and forever, I consecrate myself to Thy cause. O blessed God, who art love and naught but love. I thank Thee, I thank Thee!”
The sun, now a great, red disk, had burst into sight. The golden light lay shimmering on hill and vale. Every dewy blade of grass, stalk of grain, and dripping leaf seemed to breathe afresh. From the lower boughs of the trees night-woven cobwebs hung, the gauzy snares of creatures as wise as Napoleon and materially as cruel. The scattered houses of Grayson were now in view. Paul feasted his eyes on the Square, and the diverging streets which led into the red-clay mountain roads. The hamlet was almost devoid of life. He saw, or thought he saw, his old friend, Silas Tye, go out to the public pump in front of his shop, fill a pail with water, and disappear. In the wagon-yard were two canvas-covered wagons and a camp-fire, over which men, women, and children were cooking breakfast. Paul's glance swept down the rugged slope to Hoag's house. Cato was feeding the horses and cattle in the stable-yard. Aunt Dilly, in a red linsey frock, was chopping stove-wood close to the kitchen, the thwacks of her dull ax sharply audible. Paul suddenly had a desire to speak to these swarthy toilers, to take them by the hand and make them feel his boundless friendliness to them, and so, with a parting look at the view below, he turned and began to retrace his steps.
Cato was near the kitchen door helping Dilly take in the wood when Paul went up the front walk, turned the corner of the house, and approached him. The negro stared in astonishment, then laid down his burden and held out his hands.
“My Gawd, Mister Paul, is dis you? Lawd, Law'd 'a' mussy!”
“Yes, it is I,” the young man answered; “I've got back at last.”
“It's a wonder I knowed you wid dat beard, an' dem fine riggin's on.” Cato was eying Paul's modern raiment with a slow, covetous glance. “But it was dem eyes o' your'n I knowed you by. Nobody ain't gwine ter forgit dem peepers. Somehow dey look as saft as 'er woman's. What yer been done ter yo'se'f—you ain't de same. My Gawd, you ain't de same po' boy dat tried yo' level best ter kill dat white man wid er gun.”
Paul was saved the embarrassment of a reply by the sudden appearance of Aunt Dilly, who was literally running down the steps from the kitchen porch.