"He's talked of these things," answered Jacob's wife, "for I've challenged him sometimes and said how I believe, with you, that nothing happens that's not ordained to happen. But he won't grant that. He holds much evil happens that we might escape, if men were wiser and more patient and reasonable. He's great on reason."
"I'm sorry to hear it," replied Judith. "Reason is well known for a very faulty shift and the play-ground of the devil. Reason don't save no souls, but it damns a parlous number, and I wish I could feel a lot surer than I do where Jacob will spend his eternity."
Margery was not moved at this dreadful suspicion.
"Goodness is goodness and can't be badness," she said, "and goodness is rewarded. Jacob says religion can't alter your instincts, or your nature; and if you're the fidgety, anxious sort, belief in the Almighty won't make you less so. You may know perfectly well that you ought to trust, like a lamb trusts its mother; but Jacob says you can't always keep your mind fixed on God, when it's full to bursting with a wife and children. I know what he means well enough."
"Do you? Then I'm cruel sorry to hear it," answered Judith, who was much perturbed. "What's religion for but to alter your instincts and your wretched nature? If I thought that man was weakening your faith by a hair's breadth, or casting the shadow of danger over your soul, I'd call upon you on my knees to leave him."
Then Barlow spoke, calmed his wife and endeavoured to lighten the gravity of the conversation.
"Let it be, Judy, and use your brains," he began. "We all very well know what a difficult thing it is to say what we mean, for words beat their makers, time and again, and half the trouble in the world, so parson tells me, was begot at Babel. And I doubt not that what Margery says Jacob told her, wasn't exactly what Jacob thought he'd told her. Plain mouth-speech is a very hard thing to reach, and if we, who keep a shop, don't know it, who should?"
"He's very sparing of words at all times," added Margery.
"Jacob," continued Barlow, "is hard in some things and silly soft in others. But every man that was ever born does silly things in a woman's opinion, off and on. And women have got their own silliness—to the male's eye. Not you, Judith, but the race in general. Women drive men wild sometimes, and we drive them wild. The difference is that generally they tell us if we disagree with them, and we ain't so open."
"That's true," admitted Margery. "And nought, I'm sure, vexes a woman more than to know she's going wrong and not be told how."