"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.