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.

"Look here!" he said; "about this unfortunate business. Why don't
you and your son make up your minds without more ado to let your
granddaughter go out to service? You've been here all your lives; I
don't want to see you go."

The least touch of color invaded the old man's carved and grayish face.

"Askin' your pardon," he said, "my son sticks by his girl, and I sticks
by my son!"

"Oh! very well; you know your own business, Gaunt. I spoke for your
good."

A faint smile curled the corners of old Gaunt's mouth downward beneath
his gray moustaches.

"Thank you kindly," he said.

Malloring raised a finger to his cap and passed on. Though he felt
a longing to stride his feelings off, he did not increase his pace,
knowing that the old man's eyes were following him. But how pig-headed
they were, seeing nothing but their own point of view! Well, he could
not alter his decision. They would go at the June quarter--not a day
before, nor after.

Passing Tryst's cottage, he noticed a 'fly' drawn up outside, and its
driver talking to a woman in hat and coat at the cottage doorway. She
avoided his eye.

'The wife's sister again!' he thought. 'So that fellow's going to be an
ass, too? Hopeless, stubborn lot!' And his mind passed on to his scheme
for draining the bottom fields at Cantley Bromage. This village trouble
was too small to occupy for long the mind of one who had so many
duties....

Old Gaunt remained at the gate