"Leave it," she said. "I feel same as you; but I haven't thought about such fearful things and more have you; but mother and father have. You must give them best in that matter, please, Jacob."
She was pained and they fell silent for a while. The man resolved to enlarge her ideas presently, and felt a smoulder of indignation that a creed so ugly to him should have seared the mind of an innocent and happy girl.
They still held north over wild lands with the heights rolling about them; then they reached the ancient Abbot's Way, running east and west, and met Auna's stream near Huntingdon Cross, a granite memorial from olden time. Less than five feet high it stood above the heath.
"Here's the Forest Boundary," said Jacob, "and now we'll get to the Warren House yonder, rest a bit and start for home.'
"I always feel sorry to turn at the end of a great day," she answered, "and this is the greatest day, but one, that ever I have lived."
He kissed her.
"And that one was the day you asked me to marry you, Jacob."
"Don't I know it?"
The Warren House stood before them under a ragged sycamore. It was almost the loneliest inhabited dwelling in Devon, and its squat, white face peered out upon the wilderness from under a black, tar-pitched roof. The rabbit warrens spread on either hand and the dwelling lay in the protection of a tumulus that piled up to the northward.
"I love this forgotten place," declared Bullstone. "In some moods—not now, but once when I was younger and less content than now—I've thought it would be a very good place to live, beyond the fret and cark of life."
But Margery shivered.
"I'd have to be broke in mind and body and not wishful to live at all, before I'd live here," she said.
Indeed the spot was somewhat melancholy and calculated to chill a cheerful spirit. Death seemed to have made this place a home. Evidences of mortality stared round about. In one corner of the little yard was a heap of bones, and suspended from a low bough of the sycamore, there hung a flayed horse by a hook.
"I'm sorry for my pretty Auna that she has to pass up here," declared Margery. "She must be properly glad to wind away down into our beautiful valley and come to Red House and Shipley Bridge."
"You should see Auna Head," he answered,—"that's where she rises, in a desert of bog and cotton grass under Ryder's Hill. Lonesome there if you like. Hardly will you hear a bee booming and never see colt or head of kine. Nothing but the pad marks of a fox and the sweep of his brush in the mud. We'll ride up some Sunday when I've got your pony. Now let's go in, and you'll see two men that are so nearly content as ever I knew men to be, for all their loneliness. Father and son they are."
"I know them well enough," she answered, "I've often met 'em coming in with rabbits when I was exercising the dogs."
"The deuce you have! And never told me?"
She smiled at him.
"Benny Veale's a good-looking chap, and his father's a fine old man and kindly."
"I'm hearing things," exclaimed Jacob.
"You get to talk to a lot of people out with the puppies. Everybody's so interested in them."
"And interested in you, I reckon. Well, you won't walk puppies and talk to strangers much longer."
Now came a riot of life in the shape of the warrener's dogs. Half a dozen lean, wiry creatures, barking and gambolling, ran before a man. They worked for him on the warren, and the dead horse represented meals to come. They wagged their tails and saluted the Irish terriers in friendship. Benny Veale followed them—a sun-tanned, red lad in a blue sailor's jersey and long boots. He was carrying a dozen dead rabbits, but threw them down and saluted the visitors.
"Who'd have thought to see you, Mr. Bullstone!" he exclaimed, grinning at Margery.
"Where's the governor?" asked Jacob.
"He'll be along direckly minute."
"Can you give us a cup of tea, Ned?"
"Ess I can, then; I'll make it."
"How's the rabbits?"
"No lack—just getting busy again; but us don't do much for a fortnight yet."
He lifted his voice and shouted.
"Here's Mr. Bullstone come up over, father."
Then an old, bent man appeared from the hillocks of the warren. He walked with a long stick and was bowed in the back and lame; but he revealed a cheerful countenance and proved an elderly edition of his son, though his red hair was nearly white and had dwindled to little patches above his ears. Upon his head not a hair remained.
He beamed from a mouth wherein teeth were few.
"So here's the she!" he said, first shaking Margery's hand. "And I wish you both luck I'm sure. 'Tis a terrible blow to Benny I can tell you, for he's been chattering about you, Miss, ever since he first catched sight of you along with the little dogs."
Benny did not hear this jest: he had gone in to prepare tea; but Jacob did hear and little liked it.
"You're getting too old for this place and this job," he said. "About time you took your bones down to the village, Frederick."
"Granted," answered Mr. Veale. "I did ought to be gone; but I say that every winter, and yet find myself up for one more season come summer again. I'm better this year than what I was last."
"You look very well indeed, Mr. Veale," declared Margery.
"The point of the wedge is in," confessed Frederick humorously. "Death have got it among my bones, and will hammer it home in God's good time; but my vitals is all working very suent yet, and if I sleep a lot, I'm wonderful between whiles."
They entered a rough, unclean kitchen cumbered with trappers' tools. Jacob was not at ease and regretted that they had come. He cut short Benny in some simple gallantries and having drunk a cup of tea, declared that they must push forward.
But Mr. Veale protested.
"Bide a bit," he said, "and smoke your pipe. Us don't have visitors very oft I warn 'e."
"I do trust you be going to ask us to the wedding, Miss," ventured Benny, who could not take his eyes off Margery's face.
"I'd like for you to come," she answered. "I hope there will be a brave rally of neighbours I'm sure."
"You'll be married from the post-office, of course," assumed Benny's father. "Trust Mr. and Mrs. Huxam to do it in good order. But be she willing to go to Church, or can the Chosen Few hold lawful marriage?"
"It's going to be in Church, because Mr. Bullstone's Church of England," explained Margery.
"And when do it happen, Miss?" asked Benny.
"Next November."
Jacob gave each man a fill from his pouch and the talk ran for a time on dogs; then he rose to depart.
"Well, may your love adventures all turn out well and fine," said Mr. Veale, "and the Lord remember you and be good to the pair of you."
Benny shyly took a sprig of white heath from a jam jar, where it stood in water.
"Found it yesterday. Please accept of it, Miss."
She thanked him and guessed he had intended to present it on the following day, when it was probable they would have met at Shipley Bridge—she with her puppies, he with a cart of rabbits on his way to Brent. But before Huntingdon Warren House was lost on their homeward way, Jacob asked her to drop the flower.
"I don't like that sort of nonsense," he said. "The young man made a hole in his manners offering it, in my opinion. I'll forgive him this time, because he used to be a sailor and they don't know better."
Margery instantly flung away the blossoms.
"A mannerless oaf," added Jacob, "else he'd have known wiser than to stare at you as though you were a show. I'll ask you not to take note of him if you meet him again without me."
Margery wondered and her heart beat a little quicker.
"Isn't he a good sort of man?" she asked.
"For all I know; but the woman that's going to marry me needn't trouble whether any other man's good or not."
"That's true," she said, smiling to herself. "I never thought about how good you were when I began to love you—only how wonderful and precious. Love don't take much account of goodness or badness I reckon."
"Very often not, till too late."
"Then it's a bit of added fortune to fall in love with a right good man," she said.
"Safest no doubt. But I wasn't quite like you. I did take into account your goodness; and I wouldn't have let myself love you, as I do love you, if you hadn't been better than gold. If I'd found you were light and didn't take life seriously, I should still have been interested in you and anxious for your future and wishful to advance it; but I shouldn't have fallen in love with you, Margery."
"You fright me when you say that," she answered, "because we all know lovers can't see straight; and now I shall fear you'll find me not half so good as you think."
"There—there; now you're fishing for praise! You know yourself very well; and if you hadn't been my sort, you wouldn't have fallen in love with me. And don't you be fearing I'm too serious and like to bore you. I love life and the good things of life, though work's the best of them and wears best. But we won't miss the junkettings and revels now and then; though with your upbringing, I shouldn't wonder if you proved a thought more stiff-starched than I, for all my age and experience."
They chatted very joyously together and then a good thing happened, for in the shaking moss, where a spring was born and bubbled up out of the granite, Jacob marked a piece of bog heather, white as snow, and though he had to wade half up his leggings to get it, he did not hesitate.
"There!" he said, "there's your white heather, and now you've got your luck from me and none else."
"I'll treasure it up for ever and ever," she said. "I've got my luck from you—that's a true word in the sight of God; and I hope a time is coming when you'll say you've got your luck from me."
"Luck's a poor word," he answered. "I've got my new life from you, Margery. All that's coming means you—all."
"Who laughed at me and said I was talking poetry on Ugborough?" she asked, with the evening light on her dark hair and in her eyes.
Jacob put his arm round her.
"What I say isn't poetry—unless God's truth be poetry," he answered.
So they came home together beside the river.
Two persons, ignorant of each other's presence, sat nigh the river on a windy day in October. The latter rains had fallen, the springs were unsealed. Each rillet was swollen to a gushing stream and the rivers ran in torrents. North and south they shouted from their drowned fountains and hurried a mighty volume of cherry red and spumy water back again to the Channel and the Severn Sea, whence it had come.
Auna, running riotously high above her summer bed, hung dead sticks and withered foliage on inundated branch and bough, to mark her progress and leave a signal of her autumn frolic. She shouted, wild as a mænad, and leapt from rock to rock, swirling here, flinging wide, glassy billows there, and submerging each familiar stock and stone along her banks. The height of the freshet was over and the river had already fallen a foot from her torrent of the day before. Now sunshine filled the valley, while the fires of the fall flashed on oak and beech and the last of the rowan berries.
On Shipley Bridge sat a man smoking and waiting to keep an appointment. He was to meet Benny Veale from the warrens, and beside him, in a limp heap of grey and white fur, lay a dozen dead rabbits.
Adam Winter, the new tenant of Shipley Farm, was a man of thirty with a fair, commonplace face. He stood only five feet eight, but was well built and strongly put together. He wore a small moustache and a little patch of sandy whisker before each ear. His pale blue eyes were kindly, the expression of his face amiable, easy and rather wistful.
He had failed at Brent and lost half his capital, an inheritance from his dead father; and now he was trying his luck again on a smaller place, with the moorman's privileges of turbary and grazing. A maiden aunt kept house for him, and his right hand was an elder brother, Samuel Winter, a man weak-minded and lacking in self-control, yet resolute to work, happy in solitude and not difficult to manage.
Adam had made a start and being of a temperate and reflective nature in most affairs of life, faced the future without fear. He was not ambitious, or concerned to do much more than keep his aunt and brother and himself in solvency. Five years earlier he had been in love in a tepid fashion, but his romance came to nothing and its failure left him cast down for a short while only. He soon recovered, but revived no ambition to wed.
Here, then, he lingered with the sun on his back, appreciated the gentle warmth, smoked his pipe, listened to the thunder of the river in the gorge beneath him and perceived that the granite bridge vibrated to its rough challenge.
A heavy network of boughs hid the valley above him. Otherwise he had observed the only other occupant of the spot, where sat Margery on her favourite ledge, now only just clear of the water. The pool beneath her remained calm no more, but was alive and dancing and deep. The bottom had disappeared in the peat-soaked current, and little argosies of spume trembled here with bursting bubbles, while half the backwater was hidden under the honey-coloured churnings of the river. Her favourite, smooth reaches were no longer smooth; her laughing stickles were drowned. All heaved and rolled with unwonted weight of waters, and against the deep baying of the river, Margery's puppies lifted their shrill yap. Above her crossed the arms of oak and ash; upon the banks the fern was down and the tawny brakes spread sodden purple under much rain. Beneath this point, Auna narrowed to a cleft, where an augmented waterfall now tumbled into the gully below.
Margery sat and brooded, for the day was one of eventful character in her life. To-morrow her reign as kennel-maid at Red House would end; she was to return home and not reappear until after her marriage. Happiness dominated her mind; yet there were regrets. Never again would she wear doublet and hose; and that grieved her, for she loved this attire and marvelled why women should be denied such seemly and convenient raiment. It was a small thing, yet not to be relinquished without sighs. And she would be queen of the puppy dogs no more. The busy, russet creatures, growing sturdy now and ripe for discipline, still made her the centre of their activities and joys. Their eyes were ever uplifted to her, for she was their god—the benignant power that ordered their world, chastened them, cheered them and encouraged them, applauded them, made games for them, flung fir cones for them, consoled them in disaster, shared their joy, filled their little, ever hungry bellies.
Now they nosed her and squeaked into her ears, while she sat with elbows on knees and chin in hands as motionless as the grey stones.
"Oh, you duckies!" she said aloud, "how am I going to say good-bye to you even for six weeks? But half of you will be sold and out in the world before I come back."
She pushed them away and the pups scattered to pursue their pleasure. They were wide awake to the meaning of water and she felt no fear for them, but concentrated on herself and the days to come.
There stole into her heart a feeling that the past had been too good to continue long.
"It isn't often what's good turns into what's better," thought Margery. "My days can't be so perfect for ever, if what mother says is true."
Then suddenly, without one preliminary monition, Mrs. Huxam's prophecy was confirmed, and the rag of many colours that men call life rent for Margery and revealed a new thing.
She heard a sudden howl of terror from a puppy, and leaping up, saw one of her charges in the river. Two playing on the bank had rolled together at water's brink, and in a moment one was over. The current tumbled the small thing away and swept him into the main channel. He now bore down upon Margery, who stood ten yards below, and she perceived that the sole way to save him must be by wading to the central tide, where it gleamed between two shallows a few yards above the fall. If she failed, the terrier would certainly go over and make an end of himself. He was drowning already, with terrified eyes and black nose lifted, while he swept downward like a dead leaf, beating the water with his paws.
She did not hesitate, but dashed in at once, knee deep, thigh deep, all unconscious of the forces against her. She intercepted the little lump of red hair, grabbed him, and then, finding herself powerless to stem the heaving water, took both hands to the puppy and flung him five yards to the bank. Happily he fell light on broken fern, where he lay shivering, shaking and weeping till his brothers found him.
To plunge before the stream had been easy but, against the flood water, return proved impossible for Margery. The river converged and held her now at the centre of the current, where its energies were concentrating for the fall. She heard the roar behind her and felt fierce hands thrusting her backwards toward it. She strove to fight forward, but her long, slim legs were not built to oppose such power. She swayed, and as she lifted one foot, the other was instantly swept from under her. Now she was up to her waist and in another two seconds off her feet and rolled over. A yard above the waterfall her head and shoulders were heaved up and she tried to catch a rock in vain. Then she screamed, with the terror of sudden death in her voice, and a moment later vanished in the great, amber-coloured roll of the river, as it swept to its fall.
Her cry had been heard, though it seemed doubtful whether a human being could survive that shattering drop, even if the rocks were merciful. But Adam Winter caught the shriek and, jumping to his feet and peering under the boughs, was just in time to see a human arm and leg thrust from the resounding arc of the waterfall and hurled into the welter of foam beneath. He knew the place and wasted no time. He judged that some foolhardy boy had fallen into the water and been swept to destruction; but the scream made it clear that the victim had come to his ordeal with plenty of life in him.
Winter scrambled down the bank, flinging off his coat as he did so. If any thought passed through his mind as he automatically rushed to his task, it was one of annoyance that he should be called to a business so unpleasant. The discomfort troubled him more than the danger; indeed for him there was little danger. He jumped over a bank into the river, found it reach to his middle and then ploughed up from the shallow end of the hole to the deep water under the fall. The place was dark and full of the din of the water. He saw a hand sweep up and disappear; then he left the ground and swam a few strokes to the boiling dance of the foam.
Good fortune favoured Adam, for he came straight upon Margery's floating body, held her before she sank again, got his shoulder under her and so swam the little distance necessary to reach foothold. Then he stood up, gripped her round the waist and presently carried her clear of the river. Not till he found her hair all over his face did he know that he had saved a woman. He brushed it away and recognised Margery; then, in great dread that he carried a corpse, set out with her to the Red House. His own place was nearer, but Adam felt impelled up the valley.
The girl remained quite unconscious. She was not heavy and he made good way, finding time to wonder what had brought her into the river. Then the puppies appeared and crept in doubt and dismay round him. To see their god limp, silent, still, thus carried in a man's arms, appalled them. They barked and whimpered, but would not lose sight of their guardian and followed in an agitated company at Winter's heels.
Thus they came, until Bullstone, proceeding under the fir trees to find Margery, suddenly discovered her in Winter's arms. The blood surged up to his face; he stared; he snorted and then charged forward.
"What in God's name——?" roared Jacob; then he dropped his ash sapling and almost snatched the unconscious girl from Adam.
"Fell into the river and went over the rocks into the pool," said the younger man quietly. "Please the Lord she ain't dead. I don't think she is."
Jacob was panting.
"For any man but me to touch her!" he almost groaned, to himself rather than the rescuer.
Winter stared and stopped. He was about to explain events, but Jacob strode away, the puppies streaming behind him.
He lifted his voice and bawled for help before he reached his door. Then Mrs. Bullstone hastened and found him already beside the kitchen fire. He lowered Margery to the ground, bade his mother undress her and went for brandy.
Returning with it he found the sufferer had regained consciousness. She could not speak but her eyes were open. She drank; then Jacob went for blankets and within ten minutes had left the house, hastened to the stables and saddled a horse. He quickly galloped off to Brent for a doctor and Margery's mother.
In time they arrived, to a turmoil of talk and tears from Mrs. Bullstone—a dislocated, agitated upheaval in which Judith Huxam and her daughter alone preserved calm. The physician found Margery bruised and cruelly shaken, but without a broken bone. There was concussion, how severe he could not immediately determine.
He directed them and asked a question of Jacob before leaving.
"How did she get in the water? Not intentionally I hope?"
For the last time that day Bullstone was staggered beyond reason.
"'Intentionally?' Good God, doctor, she's engaged to marry me!" he said. Then happened a strange thing, for in the morning, Margery proved already better after sleep, and sitting beside a convalescent sweetheart, Bullstone was reminded of one he had forgotten.
With deep emotion he came to her and gasped to see how small Margery appeared, sitting up with a pink shawl round her shoulders and her hair down.
Out of his joy and to steady himself, he blamed her—even assuming an angry manner.
"Properly mad, and must mean a screw loose in you," he said. "To go into a raging torrent like that for a puppy! You never thought of me."
"Of course I thought of you," she answered in a weary, little voice. "It was your dog and I had to save it. But in truth I thought of nothing. I was in the water before I began to think."
The threatened shadow seemed still to hang over her. Her voice was weak and her manner listless.
"I'd give ten years of my life if it had been me who rescued you," he said. "It's proper gall to think that any other man did it."
"You must forgive him—for my sake, Jacob."
"Forgive him! The mischief is that I'm under a life-long obligation now, and he may be the sort to rub it in. Not that he'll need to. I shan't forget that my debts are for ever beyond payment."
"Have you thanked him?"
"Not yet."
She was silent and then expressed a desire that startled her lover.
"No more have I. But I'm not going to let the day pass before I do."
"I'll say all there's need to say."
"No, Jacob. Life's life. I'm properly thankful not to be drowned. Think what he's done for me! If you say a word against, you'll vex me, and I mustn't be vexed."
The subject dropped while she talked of her accident—such of it as she remembered; but she felt desirous to know the exact sequel, and that only Adam Winter could tell her. When Jacob put her off and told her to trust Winter to him, she became quite silent. Then she asked him to leave her.
He went and presently the doctor called and gave a good report. He, too, brought discomfort, for Margery had repeated her wish to thank Adam Winter, and begged that she might do so immediately. She was wilful and strangely insistent, as it seemed to Jacob. Her mother, however, supported her and held it a right thing to happen. The doctor therefore advised that Mr. Winter should see her before she slept. He had found Margery so completely recovered that there was no need to call again.
"Keep her in bed one more day, and then let her get up and stop by the fire," he said. "Youth will never cease to astonish me."
Jacob Bullstone went to Shipley Farm after midday dinner and summoned Adam Winter.
"You've done more than I can pay, as you well know," he said, "and that's granted; but if it's ever in my power to lessen the obligation, I gladly shall, for I little like to be in any man's debt."
"No need to talk that way. There's no debt and no obligation. Who wouldn't have done the same? Didn't Miss Huxam go in the water herself after a puppy? We do these things, not for any return, but because we must. I'd have done as much for a sheep—so would you. I hope she's out of danger?"
"She's wishful to see you—nothing will do but she thanks you herself this instant moment."
"No need at all."
"So I say—no hurry anyway; but that's her will and she must be obeyed, if you please."
"Them caught from the grave like that did ought to be humoured," said Adam's aunt. She was a little woman with grey hair and a red face.
"I'll come, then, if it must be so," said Winter. "The green plover be back, and I shot a brace this morning. Will she accept 'em?"
"No, thanks; I'll get a bird or two for her presently."
The men returned together. Their walk had been silent on Jacob's part, while Adam related the particulars of the rescue.
"I properly thank you," said Margery, when they ascended to her room and Adam took a chair in the window, while Bullstone stood with his hands in his pocket at the foot of the bed and Judith Huxam sat beside it.
"We'll never, never forget it, Jacob and me," continued Margery.
"I hope you will, then," answered the farmer. "Why such a noise about it? Duty's duty. In fact 'twas more of a pleasure than a duty, I'm sure, and if I hadn't much feared you was a goner, I should have enjoyed the fun."
Jacob's eyes were restless, he frowned and moved about. Then he turned his back and examined some family photographs on Margery's mantelshelf.
"To save a life is a great thing, Mr. Winter," said Mrs. Huxam. "Now, whatever your own life's got in store for you, you can always remember that you had a hand, under God, in keeping a human creature alive."
"The puppy's no worse," declared Margery, "and if he knew which it was, Jacob would never part with it. But we never shall know, for I don't remember which I saved. You must be terrible strong to have faced that awful water. It took me like a leaf."
"Wasn't the water's fault," he answered. "Young women can't go playing about with the rivers in flood. A little item like you was bound to be swept away."
"It's a wonderful thing to look at a man who's saved your life," said Margery.
"Wish I was a finer object," he replied.
Jacob hid his emotion, but had to speak and occupy himself. The invalid was nursing two young puppies from the last litter. She had demanded something to play with.
"Best let me take them back," he said. "Mustn't keep Mr. Winter—he's a busy man. And mustn't spoil young dogs. Bless it, you're cuddling them as if they was a brace of babbies!"
"They are babbies," answered Margery, "and if you can't cuddle babbies, what should you cuddle?"
She was wilful still and continued to speak in a tired, small voice.
"Are you fond of dogs?" she asked, and Adam declared that he was.
"What's life without 'em, I say," he answered.
"So do I," she replied. "Jacob can't see the human side of dogs—no, you can't, Jacob. He's all for discipline."
"Quite right too," declared Winter. "You must put into the heart of a dog his bounden duty from the first, else he'll grow up a nuisance to himself and everybody else. Work did ought to be found for every dog. If it ain't, they think life's all play and that makes 'em selfish."
"Jacob's the whole law and the prophets about dogs," asserted Margery. "They're blessed creatures and nothing's too good for them—you know you think so, Jacob."
"They haven't got souls, however," explained Mrs. Huxam, "and you had no sort of right, Margery, to run the risk of drowning for a dog."
"Some dogs have got far bigger souls than some men," answered her daughter; "and you've only got to look in their eyes to see 'em."
"That's a wicked thing to say, and I'm sorry you said it," replied Judith. "It shows your mind is wandering still and there's fever left in your brain. So these men had best to be gone. You forget your religion, Margery."
The girl was silenced, but Adam Winter, who did not fear Mrs. Huxam, ventured on a doubtful joke.
"The dogs have got religion anyway," he assured them, "for I'm sure the little ones worship your darter, ma'am; and the big ones worship Mr. Bullstone."
"'Tis a great thing to search to the heart of a dog," murmured Margery, "and nobody ever did that like Jacob."
Adam Winter, conscious that his last remark had annoyed Mrs. Huxam, though she did not answer it with words, got up to go his way.
"Mustn't bide no more," he said. "And I hope you'll soon be down house and as right as rain, Miss."
She stretched out a hand and he took it and stood a moment on his way to the door.
"Mind you come to our wedding," bade Margery. "I will have you there; there wouldn't have been a wedding at all but for you."
"I'll gladly come, be sure."
He went through the door, and Bullstone followed without speaking.
BOOK I
The market town of Brent differed but little from like boroughs linked by the artery of the railroad to centres greater than themselves. It grew, reacted to the ordinary stimuli and, upon discovery of Dartmoor as a healthful resort of pilgrimage, enlarged its borders to meet increasing demand.
An environment was created after the usual pattern, and from the village centre of shops and cottages, there extended good roads on which stood single and semi-detached houses with gardens about them. The class of shop improved to serve the class of customer; the atmosphere thickened from its primitive simplicity. Change increasingly dominated Brent, creating an environment wherein to be honest and fearless grew more difficult, while cowardice and hypocrisy were encouraged by the nature of things.
Human capacity was displayed at its customary levels; greed and creed, after the inevitable rule, dominated the minds of men and women and infected the minds of the children. Education progressed, but its evidences were often painful, and, along with it, things worthy of preservation departed for ever. Modern education promotes selfishness and egotism in the pupil, but neglects any valuable formative influence on character—the result of that narrow and unimaginative type of man and woman foremost in the ranks of the certified teachers.
Ambition at Brent was only understood in terms of cash; among many of the young men and women cleverness became only another name for cunning. They were brought up, generation after generation, on the ideals of their parents, which proved a far more penetrative principle than the teaching of their schools. Then dawned class consciousness and class prejudice; and the fresh point of view took shape in creation of new values and animosities. The timid admired the bold, who had courage to scant his service, yet draw his wages. The worker who robbed his employer, confident that trade unionism would support him in any open conflict, became the hero of the shop; while the employer retaliated without patience or perspicuity. Thus worthless and unsocial ideals were created in minds upon the way to adolescence.
The church stood in the midst—architecturally a very beautiful and dignified object. Its significance otherwise only related to form and ceremony. So many had ceased to go, that the timorous began to feel they, too, might stay away without suffering in reputation, or trade. There were various chapels, also, and a few spirits reflected the past and professed obsolescent opinions, while a small minority still actually practised them.
Of such were the postmistress and her husband, Judith and Barlow Huxam. To the Chosen Few they belonged—the woman from her birth, the man by adoption; for Judith insisted, as a condition of marriage, that Barlow must join her particular sect and he, much in love and of no deep convictions, did not hesitate to oblige her. And still the pair worshipped with that mournful denomination, while the Chosen Few lived up to their proud title and became yearly fewer. This fact brought sorrow, but not surprise, to Mrs. Huxam. Fewer, indeed, were chosen, for the good reason that fewer deserved to be. She took a long view, and though admitting that her own generation was painfully distinguished by a lack of just persons in all classes, yet hoped that better times might be coming and subsequent humanity provide a more handsome inheritance for the Kingdom.
Apart from her religious predilections, Mrs. Huxam was stern, but reasonable. She knew that offences must come, while regretting that more appeared to come from Brent than most other places. She was not censorious, though glad to remember that the mills of God always ground small in the long run; and she never wavered in conviction that all was for the best and divinely preordained.
Her husband she honoured and respected, and indeed he was a man worthy of respect and honour. He had earned admiration and applause, for to have lived with Judith through thirty-five unclouded years argued great gifts of patience and philosophy on the part of Mr. Huxam. They worked in perfect amity and their drapery establishment was still the most important shop in Brent.
Judith felt prouder of her own family than her husband's, and a slight to any member of the clan was an affront upon herself. A bachelor brother lived at Plymouth. He owned trawlers and prospered, letting it be known that his niece, Margery, would some day inherit his possessions. Mrs. Huxam's father, Tobias Pulleyblank, a saddler, had been dead ten years, and her mother passed a year earlier. But other Pulleyblanks still flourished round about. They lifted steadfast lights on a naughty world, and nothing had disappointed Judith Huxam more than to find that Pulleyblank blood was not pre-potent in the veins of her own boy and girl. They both lacked that steel of character and indomitable will power she herself possessed; and though Margery Bullstone, the elder child, married to a prosperous man, had done her duty and given her mother just cause for gratification and contentment, of Jeremy, her son, this could not be admitted.
It happened that Jeremy Huxam's parents were now dwelling on this subject, for, upon the following day, Jeremy was due to return home. Once more he had been tried in the ranks of men and found wanting.
Barlow and his wife were in bed. They retired early and, as a rule, conversed for an hour on the interests of the day before sleeping. When Mr. Huxam stretched his hand for a little box beside him and took a mucilaginous lozenge for his 'tubes,' that was the signal that conversation must cease and sleep be sought.
"Jeremy certainly is a puzzling man," he confessed, "and I wish there was more of you in him and less of me. He's not altogether soft, and he's not altogether lazy, and he's always civil spoken and respectful, and everybody likes him; yet what does he amount to? A dead weight on our hands, and no sooner, after unheard-of efforts, do we launch him into deep water, than he's back on the beach again."
"It's lack of purpose," said Judith. "He's like one of them ants you see in the woods. They'll tug and tug and wander this way and that, pulling along a scrap of rubbish; and they'll climb up a stone and fall off a score of times and get no forwarder. Yet you can't deny the creatures are busy enough. Of Jeremy you can only say that he's himself and made as his Maker willed him to be. He'll never treat time like a servant, but let it master him. That's what our Thomas understood, though only a child when he died."
"True," answered Barlow, "and seeing that nobody can tell how little time may be granted them, it's a cruel sight to see the precious stuff frittered away. Some fools just kill time—murder it, because they haven't the brain power to know what to do with it; and such men ought to be took in hand, like other criminal malefactors, in my opinion, and set to do the world's work whether they want to or not. But Jeremy's not like that. He's wishful to do some good; yet things all fall to pieces when he touches them."
"Incompetence is the only word for it," said Judith.
"And with competence writ large before his eyes from his youth up!" mused Barlow. "Generally it's just the opposite, and you see children either give their parents away, or offer a good advertisement for their homes, as the case may be. A child's terrible clever at echoing and copying what goes on around him, being just so remorseless in that matter as a parrot. They'll pick up the good, or bad, manners or customs and the general outlook of their elders, and be a sort of running comment upon their fathers and mothers to the quick eye that marks 'em; for, unless they are idiots, children will be learning, and we be teaching 'em something all the time, whether we want to, or don't. Yet Jeremy breaks the rule, for what did he learn except to be hard-working and God-fearing? And that unfortunately ain't enough to make a success of life, though, no doubt, if we were all nearer Christ in thought and deed, as well as profession, it would be."
"Yes," said Mrs. Huxam. "No child of mine, or yours, ever gave us away, because, thank God, there was nothing to give away. But they well might have shone a bit brighter in our mortal view. However, that's God's affair."
She reviewed her children and took comfort in an interesting psychological fact.
"So there they stand—Jeremy, a slight man, of good intentions, but no driving power—and Margery—all right, in the keeping of a man of character, though I never pretended his character was all I could wish in the way of religion. But what shows to me the wisdom of God so amazing clear is Margery's children. Three out of the four are full of Pulleyblank!"
"You may say they have a big pinch," admitted Barlow; "and what does that amount to? Why, that the Lord knows a good thing when He sees it. The Pulleyblank character has helped to make England what it is, and if the world of men and women were flooded with it, the Chosen Few would soon rise up to be the Chosen Many."
"We can't hope that," she answered, "because the Word says 'no'; but Margery's two boys and her eldest girl have got character, and if they see enough of us as time goes on, so much the better for them."
"Margery's got character too—she thinks right," declared Mr. Huxam.
"She does—I'm not judging her. Jacob Bullstone is a difficult man in some ways, though where she's concerned I don't quarrel with him. Margery is a very good wife; but she was always fond of pleasure in season and out; and that's the weakness."
"Well, Bullstone ain't. By no means a pleasure-loving man; and we must give him credit in his children also. They've been brought up to the dignity of work. They're not spoiled."
"He'll claim the credit, no doubt; but I shan't be sorry when they're out in the world."
"The blessing is that they've got what Jeremy never did have," said Mr. Huxam; "and that's an idea of what they want to do. John Henry will be a farmer, and there's no shadow of turning with him, young as he is. That's Pulleyblank. Then Peter's for the dogs. He'll carry on his father's business. They're not particular good scholars, so schoolmaster tells me, but they'll go to work presently, knowing all they need to know about learning in general. And you can get on without a lot of learning, so called, amazing well. Then Avis is handsome and will be married in a few years. And that only leaves Auna."
"To call a child after the river was a silly thing, and I never thought the same of the man after he did it," said Judith.
"It was poetry," explained Barlow. "And you can't fairly blame him. Margery loves the river and she would have it so."
"He ought to have withstood her. My wish was 'Mary.' We haven't had a 'Mary' since my aunt died."
"Auna's the living daps of what her mother was at eleven years old," continued Mr. Huxam. "But Jeremy's the matter now. I'm going to propose that he sees his brother-in-law as soon as may be. Jacob Bullstone will help him for his wife's sake, if it can be done. He's always been very well disposed to Jeremy."
"What can he do?"
"Who knows? We never yet did ask him to lend a hand, and this may be the appointed time."
Mrs. Huxam was doubtful.
"I shouldn't much wish to be under any obligation in that quarter," she said.
"You won't be," he replied. "It's Jeremy who goes to the man, not you. And Jeremy's the sort must be under obligations. He's built so. There's plenty others like him. They give the stronger Christians a chance to shine and practise the virtues. You must have weak members for the righteous to show their light before men."
He stretched for his jujubes and Judith, heaving a sigh, settled down.
Jeremy Huxam was the sort of son a mother is bound to love, even though her respect has vanished and her ambition disappeared. He had a charming face, charming manners and a sanguine nature, easily elated and easily cast down. He was fair, with an amber moustache, which did not conceal a small and pretty mouth. He had large, grey eyes and a trifling forehead, over which hung bright, curly hair. He was a sort of womanly edition of Mr. Huxam, but taller and more gracefully built. Jeremy attached importance to his clothes and dressed well. His voice was gentle and he often laughed. He was exceedingly selfish; but he had the knack to please, and had won many friends, for his own urbane sake as well as his father's. But new enterprises, begun in hope, always sank into doubt and ended in exasperation. He was an attractive, futile person, and would continue to be so.
Mrs. Huxam, remembering her own mighty influence for good on her husband, sometimes thought that, did her son take a wife, the situation might be saved; but Barlow deprecated any such enterprise at present, pointing out that the sort of wife Jeremy would be likely to choose was ill-calculated to fortify his spirit, or strengthen his footsteps.
Now that opinion of the past echoed with resounding chaos upon his parents' ears, for Jeremy Huxam returned from Plymouth on the following day a married man. It was the second, shattering shock in the lives of Barlow and Judith.
His father went to meet Jeremy, who emerged from a third-class carriage on the arrival of the train, and then handed out a very fine young woman. He beamed upon Barlow, shook him warmly by the hand and turned to the girl who stood behind him.
"Jane," he said, "this is my dear father, and now he'll be yours."
Then he introduced his wife.
"A bit of a surprise, father. You don't remember Jane Parsons, I expect, daughter of Mrs. Parsons up at Bullstone Farm in the old days; but she's Jane Huxam now and has honoured me by marrying me. And, from this great event, there's no doubt my fortunes will change."
Jane Huxam, dark and tall, with a humble expression and a loose mouth, shook the postmaster's hand very nervously and hoped he would forgive them.
"We've known each other a longful time," said Jeremy, "and remembering you thought so well of the Catt family, I was pretty sure you'd be glad to hear that Jane cared for me. And it's the turning point, and it will be like your unfailing kindness, father, if you take us hopefully before mother, as if you was pleased about it."
"We feel that as man and wife we shall be able to get on a lot better in the world than separate," explained Jane. "Nothing will be difficult to me when I think of Jeremy."
"Same here," declared her husband. "I always wanted a home-grown wife, and we're both that fond of Brent that we shall be a lot happier here. Jane's properly glad to be back, and I'm very wishful to find work near you and mother. I missed you both a lot. Of course you'll say that we ought to have told you the glad news, and you must understand Jane was set on doing so. But the fault is entirely mine, dad."
Having said these things hastily, Jeremy went to see after the luggage, and Mr. Huxam, who had been too astonished to do more than stare and listen, turned to his daughter-in-law.
"And when you naturally asked my son to let us hear about this, what reason did he give for refusing?" he inquired.
"Truth's truth, Mr. Huxam," answered Jane, twisting her wedding-ring, "and I've told him we must speak the truth in everything, else such a woman as Mrs. Huxam would turn against us. It's like this. I was assistant at a pastry-cook's and, of course, I've known Jeremy since we were children, and he often came to Bullstone Farm after his sister married Mr. Jacob. So we met in Plymouth, and I went with Jeremy on a steamer, for one of they moonlight excursions to the Eddystone Lighthouse. And, coming home, he offered for me, and I said 'yes.' Then I was all for telling the great news; but he wouldn't."
"And why wouldn't he? There must have been a reason."
"The reason was that he much feared his mother would rise up and forbid it," said Jane. "Truth's truth, Mr. Huxam, and I won't begin my married life with a lie, even if we have to live in a gutter. He felt cruel sure that Mrs. Huxam wouldn't like him marrying, though he never said she wouldn't like me myself. He felt sure that you would like me, because you had a very high opinion of my late grandfather, Mr. Matthew Catt, and of the Catts in general; but he weren't going to take any risks, and being a man of tender mind, he knew it would hurt him dreadfully if his mother was to put down her foot against the match. And he felt, rather than face such a sad thing as that, and cause his mother pain, and suffer a lot himself, and perhaps even be drove to break it off, which would have pretty well killed me—in a word, Mr. Huxam, he felt 'discretion was the better part of valour.' That was his own wise words. And so we were married quite lawful and regular in a church, and he's got the lines. And if love can make him a success, he'll be one in future. He's a wonderful man really."
Jeremy returned.
"Tom Bonus will bring along our two boxes," he said. "It's very comforting to see faces you know round about you again, and I hope I shan't be called to leave Brent no more. My next job will be tackled with all the determination of a married man, dad; and, if it suits me, I shouldn't wonder if I surprised you."
Mr. Huxam began to collect his shattered wits.
"I don't want no more surprises," he answered. "We'll walk round the long way, and just let me get law and order into the situation afore we go home. I blame you a very great deal; but that's neither here nor there. My rule is to face facts and never waste time thinking how much nicer it would be if they was different. You're married—that's the first thing to grasp—and the second and more important is this that you are now going before your mother, wife in hand, and your mother don't know what you've done."
"We've come home properly worked up to face the music," said Jeremy. "United we stand, dad. We feel that very much indeed; and divided we should have fallen without a doubt. But well we know that there's nothing like the plain, unvarnished truth and——"
"Dry up and listen to me," replied his father. "As nought else will serve but the truth in a case like this, it ain't particular wonderful to hear you say the truth have got to come out. But why you hid the truth, you know; and Jane's told me, so I know also. That's your weak nature, and I'm not troubling myself about you, nor yet this woman, who may very like be too good for you."
"Far from it, Mr. Huxam," said the young wife. "With all his faults, Jeremy's a lot better than me."
"Don't eat humble pie, Jane," said her husband. "That's a thing that never pays with mother. She hates for people to cringe."
"It's your mother and only your mother I'm thinking upon at present," continued Barlow, "and according as your mother receives this blow, so it will be. At best it must shake her to the roots, because it shows up a very dark and unexpected side of you. Cowards are always cunning, and it don't astonish me so much, because it's well in keeping with your character to do a thing behind the scenes you wouldn't dare in the open; but his mother have always had a soft corner for him, Jane—the only soft corner she ever allowed herself for anybody—except her Maker—and so this is going to be an eye-opener for her. And an eye-opener, where the heart is set, always happens to be the most painful sort."
"You're speaking without allowing for the great powers of my wife, dad," murmured Jeremy.
"I am," admitted Mr. Huxam, "because I don't know anything about the great powers of your wife; but I know the great powers of mine, and her way of looking at everything; and her principles and her trust in even Higher Powers than her own."
"Our marriage was made in Heaven, if ever there was one, I'm sure," ventured Jane.
"It may, or may not have been. But Heaven never meant for you to keep it hid from Jeremy's parents; and if it was made in Heaven, Mrs. Huxam would have been the last to try and prevent it," answered Barlow. "The point for the minute is to break it to her, and I'm inclined to think I can do that a lot better than my son."
"Devil doubt it!" said Jeremy with great relief. "It's like your sense to see that, father. I quite agree. I quite agree. Supposing Jane and I go for a nice walk and come back home to tea?"
"Do Mrs. Parsons know?" asked Mr. Huxam.
"There again," answered Jeremy. "We didn't tell her. Not but well we know she'll be glad."
"She'll be proud," promised Jane. "It will be the proudest day of her life. She never hoped anything like Jeremy for me, Mr. Huxam. She knew there were a good few after me, but never thought of your son."
Mrs. Milly Parsons now dwelt in a cottage by Lydia Bridge, where the river took a great leap before descending into the meadows and woods of Brent. Thankfully Jeremy postponed the supreme moment of the day, left his father to break the news, implored him to do so in a friendly spirit and wandered off with his wife up the valley beside the river.
Then Barlow Huxam returned to his shop, called Judith from behind the counter for a moment and prepared to tell her what had happened.
"At my wish, Judy, our son has gone up over and won't be back till tea-time," he began, but Mrs. Huxam stopped him.
"Who is she?" asked Jeremy's mother quite quietly.
Again Barlow felt the solid earth slipping.
"You know?" he asked.
"Two boxes have come, and Bonus brought them," she answered. "I told him only one was Jeremy's, and he said very like, but that the other belonged to his wife."
"It's true. Wonders never cease in our family—well ordered though it may be. The world's to the young, and a proper mess they seem likely to make of it. You always thought that marriage would save or settle Jeremy, and we can only pray that it will save him."
Mrs. Huxam was pale. She mopped her face quietly with a white handkerchief and remained silent.
"Don't you take on," he begged. "Don't let it shake you."
"Does anything shake me?" she asked. "What right should I have to stand with the Chosen Few, Barlow Huxam, if anything shook me? It's the Lord's will and that's enough."
"There!" he said, "faltering creature that I am, I never thought of that."
"No—nor yet Jeremy. But a man don't marry a woman by chance. It had to be, and it is. And who is she?"
"Jane Parsons—child of Milly Parsons by Lydia Bridge, who was daughter of the late Matthew Catt of Bullstone Farm. The Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes, Judy."
"Things done behind our backs are often marvellous in our eyes, when we first see them," she answered. "I shall take this as I take everything else, Barlow, knowing where it comes from."
"It may be a blessing in disguise. She's a fine girl and will have her mother's little bit of money. Farmer Catt left just in sight of four figures. They'll be here to tea. They're full of resolutions."
Jeremy and his wife went to dinner at Red House a week after their return home. His marriage afforded mild entertainment to those who knew him. Some felt sanguine, others prophesied confusion and failure on a larger scale than he had yet achieved.
As they walked through a June morning, Jeremy explained to Jane that Jacob Bullstone was a man of affairs and might be expected to help them.
"Not so much for my sake as Margery's," he admitted; "but he's a wonderful husband to her, and she will have been at him already I expect. My sister's delighted that I'm married, and no doubt will feel that now is the time for my real friends to come forward."
Jane, also of a sanguine temperament, echoed his hopes. She loved him so much that it seemed hard to suppose the world would deny such a man his opportunity.
As they neared Red House, they overtook an ancient man walking slowly before them.
"It's William Marydrew," said Jane. "He was often up over at Bullstone when Grandfather Catt lived. A proper old figure of fun."
They saluted Billy, who walked with a stick and smoked a clay pipe. He was bent and travelled slowly. He had snow-white whiskers, which met under his chin, and a red, crinkled face with a cheerful expression. His eyes were small and he blinked and saw badly, for they were weak. Jane told him that she was married, and he said he had heard about it, but other matters had caused the fact to slip his memory.
"May you be a happy pair and find life go very suent," he hoped.
Billy seemed, however, not so cheerful as of old.
"I trust you find yourself well," said Jane.
"Very well indeed, my dear," he answered. "If I be allowed to go my own pace and eat my own food, I don't feel a pang. Threatened blindness be my only cloud so far as the body is concerned. By ninety I shall be so blind as a mole. And yet what odds? Even so, I shall have had the use of my eyes for a quarter of a century more than most folk."
"You'm a thought downcast, Mr. Marydrew," ventured Jane. "I always remember you as a great laughter-maker in my grandfather's time."
"So I was then, and so I will be again," he promised. "I'm a funny old blid—for why? I never look back and be naturally of a hopeful turn of mind. But just now, owing to a very fatal accident, I'm under the weather for the moment."
"If there's anything in the world I could do," said Jeremy.
"No, my dear, there's nothing you can do. You see I've just closed the eyes of my only daughter. Mercy Marydrew's gone to her reward."
"Good Lord, your famous daughter dead!" exclaimed Jane.
"Died at the Cottage Hospital at half after ten," answered the old man. "And being myself mortal, I'm under a cloud for the minute. Not for her—not for her. There never was such a huckster in these parts as Mercy and never a better saleswoman."
"She had a great renown in Plymouth market," declared Jane.
"Yes—a renowned woman for a spinster. And she counted to work for another five years and then retire. But there comed a growth—one of they cursed things that creeps into the flesh unbeknownst. You feel all right for a bit, but death's burrowing in your vitals all the time; and then you be cut down and wither away."
"I hope she didn't suffer much," said Jeremy.
"I hope she didn't," answered Mr. Marydrew. "I know she's left me her savings, God bless her; but I'd a lot sooner she'd been at my death-bed, than I'd been at hers."
"You'll meet again before so very long," murmured Jane.
"A cheering thought," admitted the old man. "Yes, we shall come together in a few years, though I dare say that good woman's bit of money will keep me here longer than you might suppose. She knew very well I wouldn't waste it. I'm sorry for the parish that she's gone. The farms will look in vain for a huckster like her. The honestest woman ever I knew, after her mother."
"A very great loss indeed," said Jeremy.
"Yes, so it is then. You can judge a dead person pretty much by the hole they make when they drop out. Some don't make no hole—I shan't, and I dare say you won't; but others was so useful to the neighbours and such a tower of strength, that when they go, you most wonder how things will be without 'em."
"There's Owley Cot will be empty for one thing," said Jane.
"Yes, it will; and if bricks and mortar could be sorry for themselves, I dare say her house would grieve."
They had come to a cottage near Shipley Bridge, the home of Mr. Marydrew.
"The funeral moves on Monday at noon," he said, "and there will be a pretty good rally of neighbours I expect."
"Everybody of any account will go," declared Jeremy. "She was a most popular woman."
"Them that respect themselves did ought to go," answered Billy, "let alone them that respected her. And if you're going to Red House, break the news and tell Jacob I'll be pleased to hear his sympathy. I'm very old for a blow like this, and 'tis no good pretending I don't feel cruel cast down, because I do."
"And it will get worse, when you grasp it," foretold Jane. "I know it will."
"It's got to get worse afore it gets better," admitted Billy. "I'm quite prepared to face that. And tell Jacob to look me up in my misfortune if you please. He won't need to be told twice."
They left him, entered a grassy plateau beside the river, where towered ruins of old clay works, and so proceeded toward Red House.
They talked concerning Mr. Marydrew's loss and the familiar figure of his busy daughter. Then they noticed a boy fishing in the river. He was a sturdy, hatless youngster clad in patched, grey tweeds, with a mourning band on his left arm.
"That's John Henry," said Jeremy, "Margery's eldest."
"What's he got a mourning band on for?" asked Jane, and he explained that Jacob's mother had died during the previous winter.
They passed into the shadowy stillness of the fir wood and soon emerged before Red House. The contours of the place were unchanged, save for that gradual growth of tree and shrub which escapes the human eye; but in certain particulars there were alterations; the old severity of outline was gone; there was less tidiness and more beauty, for there had come children and flowers. Margery loved flowers and the plantings of her first wedded year, greatly prospering, now climbed Red House to its roof and increased on the river banks. Where roses and bright blossoms could grow, she had planted them; and they had passed over the river also and mantled the borders. They intruded into the vegetable patches and so greatly increased that Jacob sometimes grumbled and uprooted. Where Margery might set a climbing rose, a tiger lily, a lupin or a larkspur, she had done so. There were clumps of chrysanthemums for autumn, and the grass and river sides were sowed with daffodil and crocus for the spring. This colour flashed in stars and sprays upon the hedges and by the paths, while in the little garden, once a plat of grass and no more, now opened many flower beds that broke the green. Even to the kennels she had gone and roses now hid many of the iron bars. She declared that her passion was for children, flowers and company; and of these she lacked not the children, or the bloom.
Margery, in a white gown and a dark blue sunbonnet, met her brother and his wife and kissed them both. Now she was thirty-four and a woman of fine presence, yet slight as in her girlhood and delicately fashioned. She was healthy, but not physically strong. Her eyes told no secrets but gazed untroubled at the world. None wholly enjoyed her confidence and she spoke ever of her good fortune, never concerning any thorn that might be conceded. Thus she was believed to be a woman wholly happy, and indeed enjoyed her share of happiness. The delight of a secret had lately lent sauce to existence; for she, and she alone, was in Jeremy's confidence and had heard of his betrothal and marriage.
She greeted them with kindly laughter, chid them for a brainless couple and hoped that her brother would at last find work worthy of a married man and within his power to accomplish.
Jeremy felt no doubt of it. He prattled to Avis and Auna, his little nieces, while Margery turned her attention to Jane.
"I shall always care a lot for you," she said frankly, "first for your husband's sake, then for a reason you forget, but I do not. I mind you as a little one fifteen years ago, when my husband made holiday before I was married, and took me to Bullstone Farm. That was a great day in my life—my first treat with Jacob."
"I remember you very well," answered Jane. "I've told Jeremy I've never forgot you, and I had a bit of your wedding-cake, that mother brought home from the Huxams.
"And what about your wedding-cake?"
"We didn't have anything like that. Jeremy was so properly anxious to get the deed done that we rushed it. Mrs. Huxam's forgiven us, because she says we were in Higher Hands, and that if the Lord hadn't wanted it to happen, it wouldn't have; but my mother feels it was a good bit of a slight to keep it dark, and thinks Jeremy was undutiful and didn't pay me enough respect. But what does it all matter?"
"Not a bit," declared Jeremy's sister. "He's as good as gold, though a bit faint-hearted. You'll have to make him take himself more serious, Jane."
John Henry interrupted them. He returned with two small trout, which his mother faithfully promised to eat; and then came Peter from the kennels.
"They are praying for the holidays to come," said Margery. "My boys both hate their books you must know; and Jacob don't care over-much, because they're both so clear in their minds what they're wishful to be."
"That's a great thing," said Jane.
"It is then."
Peter resembled his father, while John Henry was said to be like his grandfather Bullstone. Both, so Jacob held, were true Bullstones—strong, self-reliant and determined. They grew fast, worked harder at home than at school, and longed for the time when they might begin life seriously—the elder on the land, the younger at his father's business.
"Peter's got the love of dogs in him on both sides," explained Peter's mother, "for I always did love the creatures, and so does Jacob; and John Henry loves farming."
Her husband, for whom they waited, appeared, and calling Jeremy, who strolled in the garden with his nieces, they went in to dinner.
Jacob Bullstone had grown stouter, but he was very active still and did the work of a man of fifty without sparing himself. His dark hair began to grizzle and his face showed lines, but he preserved his health, lived in the old way and as yet indulged none of the temptations of middle life.
He chaffed Jeremy, but was in an amiable mood.
"You haven't changed him yet I see," he said to Jane, while he sharpened a knife and prepared to carve a round of beef.
"I had to bring Auna and Avis a present of course," declared Jeremy. "They believe in their uncle, they do; and you've got to encourage people who believe in you."
The girls had shown their father two little brooches.
"Well, we shall see rare sights now no doubt," said Jacob. "With Jane here to guide the helm, you'll soon astonish us. How did your mother-in-law welcome you, Jane?"
"Like the wonderful Christian she is," answered Jeremy's wife. "Kissed me on the forehead and said a few Bible words."
For a considerable time Jeremy and Jane had to listen to the affairs of their prosperous relations. They were good listeners and praised all they heard. Of the children only Avis talked. She was a bold, handsome girl full of self-confidence. Then Margery bade her sons declare their ambitions and Jacob tried to make Auna talk, but she was very shy. She sat by her father, a thin, dark maiden, with beautiful eyes and delicate little hands. Jacob devoted a good deal of his time to her and tempted her to eat. They whispered together sometimes. Margery watched them under her lids, smiling. She knew that Auna was dearer to her husband than the other three children put together, and, in secret to her alone, he did not deny it.
"She's you again," he would say.
But Margery was not jealous for the boys. Them she set highest, and of them John Henry came first.
When the meal was done, the children departed and Jacob rambled on concerning them until Margery brought up the subject of her brother.
"Now let's talk about these young people," she said. "For though you're thirty, Jeremy, you're terrible young still—hardly wife-old, I should have reckoned."
"I'm young in heart and old in experience," vowed Jeremy. "I've got to a pitch when I know very well what I can't do, and am set on finding something I can."
"I was talking to Adam Winter about you but yesterday," continued Margery. "He's a man in a small way, but sensible and——"
Jacob interrupted her.
"Sensible no doubt. All your friends are sensible I'm sure; but your brother's come to hear me I believe."
Margery did not answer. Indeed she did not speak again; but she smiled to herself and Jacob also smiled. It was an unreal smile on both faces.
"I'm not going to do anything on the land," explained Jeremy. "I proved pretty clearly five years ago that I wasn't cut out for the land."
Jacob chaffed him again.
"Lord knows what you are cut out for—excepting a failure," he said.
"Granted," answered Jeremy; "but that was when I went into life single-handed. Lots of chaps are failures before they are married; then, afterwards, they shine out and surprise everybody."