There had died a man concerning whom few good things could be said. Marsden Blake, a landowner of wealth and position, who succeeded his father as lord of Brent manor, had been killed while shooting big game in Africa.
For the Huxams the tragedy possessed some interest, since it was this man whom their eldest son had died to save nearly twenty years ago. As a boy he had stopped Blake's runaway horse and preserved the young man's life together with his companion's; but he had lost his own in so doing.
Jacob reminded Judith of the fact and how she had told him that Providence had permitted the death of Thomas Huxam for a good end, destined some day to appear.
"What d'you think of that matter now?" he asked. "Are you going to say that Blake wouldn't have been better dead and your son better living? What's Blake's record? A wife that died of a broken heart, a wasted estate, gambling, wrong-doing and now dead—smashed to rags and bones by a rhinoceros on the Zambesi."
"Yes, and what's my son's record? What do you suppose he's been doing these twenty years? Better work—far better work than even he could have done on earth. He went, because he was ripe to go; and as for the other, he had his chance, as the worst have, but his end was preordained. If there'd been good hidden under his evil, then, when a young saint died to save him, he would have seen the Light, like Paul, and understood his Maker's mercy and turned to the Cross. But he was lost from the womb, and the one good thing you can say about him is this: that the Lord used him as a tool in the matter of Thomas—not Thomas in the matter of him as I thought at the time."
"A funny tool—a drunken, dissolute sweep like that to blot out your fine boy."
"God uses strange weapons—strange in our eyes, yet always perfect for His purpose."
History repeats itself and Jacob answered in a phrase of Xenophanes, though of that sage he had certainly never heard. But thoughts of men echo and re-echo down the centuries, as conditions are iterated by the reverberation of history.
"Doubt is extending over everything," he said, "and you stand for a sort of faith we seldom see, mother. In my young days we spoke with a good deal more certainty than our children do; but all institutions are weaker than of old. The Law's weaker, the Church is weaker, faith is weaker. There's a spirit abroad to run black into white and turn everything grey. Bad men ain't hung like they used to be, but wrangled over and often let off for false pity; sermons ain't preached like I used to hear. Everything's toned down and softened, and modern parsons will go through their discourse without daring to name hell."
"How d'you know that, since you never go to church?" asked Mrs. Huxam.