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."