"'Peace with honour' is what you and me have a right to," answered Barlow, "and if Jacob, among his possessions down this way, has got an acre or thereabout, to please your mother, Margery, so much the better. I want to see the house started."
"Jeremy's really going," Margery told them; but it was no news. Indeed his mother knew more than she.
"I won't speak about the past," she began, "though I haven't heard anybody say that Jeremy failed as huckster, or Jane to market. But now, with a family on the way, the circumstances are changed. So like as not Jeremy will come into Brent and take over Michael Catts' little business—the green-grocer's."
"Leave Owley Cot?"
"Yes. It hasn't suited him too well and he's a good bit cut off from religion up there."
"What changes!" murmured Margery. "Jacob says that Joe Elvin is going down hill rather quick. His health's giving out. In fact Jacob's beginning to look round already for a new tenant, if it must be. Just now we've got distemper in the kennels and he's lost some valuable young dogs."
"I hope he's taking it in a Christian spirit then," answered Judith. "He's had an amazing deal of good fortune in his time, by the will of God, and such men are often a great disappointment under affliction."
"He's vexed, of course, but he doesn't whine about it. You'll never see him cry out if he's hurt."
"His steady luck has not hurt Jacob, as luck is apt to do," said Barlow. "He keeps an even front."
"But he's not sound and commits himself to a very doubtful thought sometimes," replied Mrs. Huxam. "A jealous God reads every heart, Margery, and won't suffer no looseness in matters of doctrine."