Jacob broke out sometimes and said things that must have caused Margery uneasiness, had she not assumed their insignificance. What he spoke in rare fits of anger was always of the surface and unimportant to Margery, yet in another ear, if any had heard him, these speeches might have sounded ominous. Galled sometimes by thoughtlessness in his sons, or at an answer lacking in respect, he would roar harmlessly and even threaten. She had heard him say that, since Auna was the only one who cared a straw for his opinions, and valued his fatherhood in her, she should be the only one he should remember. But these things were summer thunder and lightning to his wife. Whatever his offspring might do, short of open wrong, would never influence Jacob. What was hidden she regarded, indeed, fearfully for its mystery; but that it would ever rise into injustice, folly, madness she denied. He was a man too forthright and fixed in honour and justice to wrong any fellow-creature.
And this she felt despite difference in religious opinion. She had never probed this matter, but was aware that Jacob did not share the convictions she had won in her home. He seldom went to church and seldom, indeed, discussed religion at all; but he never spoke of it without great respect and reverence before his children, though sometimes, to her, he allowed himself an expression that gave her pain.
She did not doubt, however, that under his occasional contempt for her mother's religious practices, Jacob remained a good Christian at heart. Indeed he had never questioned the verities of Christian faith, or regarded himself as anything but a religious man. But his plain dealing and scrupulous honesty sprang from heredity and was an integral part of his nature. He felt no vital prompting to religious observance in public, and his dislike of crowds kept him from church-going save on very rare occasions. Margery knew that he prayed morning and evening, and had indeed reported the fact to her mother, who distrusted Jacob in this matter. For her son-in-law himself Mrs. Huxam did not trouble; but she was much concerned in the salvation of her grandchildren.
Margery wandered down the valley one afternoon when the leaves were falling and the river making riot after a great rain in mid-moor. She always liked these autumnal phases and loved to see the glassy billows of the water roll, as they rolled when she came so near drowning in her marriage year. She proceeded to meet Jacob, who would presently return from Brent, whither he had been to despatch some dogs by train; and now she fell in with Adam Winter, riding home on a pony over Shipley Bridge. She was glad to see him, counting him among her first friends, and he welcomed her and alighted.
"Haven't met this longful time," she said and shook hands. This they never did, but for once the fancy took her and he responded.
"Leaf falling again," replied Adam, "and the autumn rain upon us. A good year, however—middling hay and corn, good roots and good grazing."
"I'm glad then. Weather's nothing to us."
"It makes a difference to your feelings," he argued. "How's things?"
"All right. 'One day followeth another,' as the Book says. And they're all mighty alike at Red House. We don't change half so much as the river. Auna was rolling down like this when I went over the waterfall, and you got wet on my account."
"Sixteen year next month; I haven't forgotten."