“I’ve never had a chance to talk things over with you,” he said.  “There are a good few people, Freeland, who can’t behave themselves; we’re not bees, you know!”

He stopped, having an uncomfortable suspicion that his hearer was not listening.

“First I’ve heard this year,” said Tod.

For all the rudeness of that interruption, Malloring felt a stir of interest.  He himself liked birds.  Unfortunately, he could hear nothing but the general chorus of their songs.

“Thought they’d gone,” murmured Tod.

Malloring again got up.  “Look here, Freeland,” he said, “I wish you’d give your mind to this.  You really ought not to let your wife and children make trouble in the village.”

Confound the fellow!  He was smiling; there was a sort of twinkle in his smile, too, that Malloring found infectious!

“No, seriously,” he said, “you don’t know what harm you mayn’t do.”

“Have you ever watched a dog looking at a fire?” asked Tod.

“Yes, often; why?”

“He knows better than to touch it.”

“You mean you’re helpless?  But you oughtn’t to be.”

The fellow was smiling again!

“Then you don’t mean to do anything?”

Tod shook his head.

Malloring flushed.  “Now, look here, Freeland,” he said, “forgive my saying so, but this strikes me as a bit cynical.  D’you think I enjoy trying to keep things straight?”

Tod looked up.

“Birds,” he said, “animals, insects, vegetable life—­they all eat each other more or less, but they don’t fuss about it.”

Malloring turned abruptly and went down the path.  Fuss!  He never fussed.  Fuss!  The word was an insult, addressed to him!  If there was one thing he detested more than another, whether in public or private life, it was ‘fussing.’  Did he not belong to the League for Suppression of Interference with the Liberty of the Subject?  Was he not a member of the party notoriously opposed to fussy legislation?  Had any one ever used the word in connection with conduct of his, before?  If so, he had never heard them.  Was it fussy to try and help the Church to improve the standard of morals in the village?  Was it fussy to make a simple decision and stick to it?  The injustice of the word really hurt him.  And the more it hurt him, the slower and more dignified and upright became his march toward his drive gate.

‘Wild geese’ in the morning sky had been forerunners; very heavy clouds were sweeping up from the west, and rain beginning to fall.  He passed an old man leaning on the gate of a cottage garden and said:  “Good evening!”

The old man touched his hat but did not speak.

“How’s your leg, Gaunt?”

“’Tis much the same, Sir Gerald.”

“Rain coming makes it shoot, I expect.”

“It do.”

Malloring stood still.  The impulse was on him to see if, after all, the Gaunts’ affair could not be disposed of without turning the old fellow and his son out.