he rather envied Tod his existence in this cottage, crazed from age,
and clothed with wistaria, rambler roses, sweetbrier, honeysuckle, and
Virginia creeper. Freeland had, in his opinion, quite a jolly life of
it--the poor fellow not being able, of course, to help having a cranky
wife and children like that. He pondered, as he went along, over a talk
at Becket, when Stanley, still under the influence of Felix's outburst,
had uttered some rather queer sayings. For instance, he had supposed
that they (meaning, apparently, himself and Malloring) WERE rather
unable to put themselves in the position of these Trysts and Gaunts. He
seemed to speak of them as one might speak generically of Hodge, which
had struck Malloring as singular, it not being his habit to see anything
in common between an individual case, especially on his own estate, and
the ethics of a general proposition. The place for general propositions
was undoubtedly the House of Commons, where they could be supported
one way or the other, out of blue books. He had little use for them in
private life, where innumerable things such as human nature and all that
came into play. He had stared rather hard at his host when Stanley had
followed up that first remark with: "I'm bound to say, I shouldn't care
to have to get up at half past five, and go out without a bath!" What
that had to do with the land problem or the regulation of village
morality Malloring had been unable to perceive. It all depended on what
one was accustomed to; and in any case threw no light on the question,
as to whether or not he was to tolerate on his estate conduct of which
his wife and himself distinctly disapproved. At the back of national
life there was always this problem of individual conduct, especially
sexual conduct--without regularity in which, the family, as the unit of
national life, was gravely threatened, to put it on the lowest ground.
And he did not see how to bring it home to the villagers that they had
got to be regular, without making examples now and then.