As for the poor fellow Tryst, thinking that by plunging into sin he could improve his lot and his poor children's, it was really criminal of those Freelands to encourage him.
She had refrained hitherto from seriously worrying Gerald on such points of village policy--his hands were so full; but he must now take his part.

And she rang the bell.
"Tell Sir Gerald I'd like to see him, please, as soon as he gets back." "Sir Gerald has just come in, my lady." "Now, then!" Gerald Malloring--an excellent fellow, as could be seen from his face of strictly Norman architecture, with blue stained-glass windows rather deep set in--had only one defect: he was not a poet.

Not that this would have seemed to him anything but an advantage, had he been aware of it.
His was one of those high-principled natures who hold that breadth is synonymous with weakness.

It may be said without exaggeration that the few meetings of his life with those who had a touch of the poet in them had been exquisitely uncomfortable.

Silent, almost taciturn by nature, he was a great reader of poetry, and seldom went to sleep without having digested a page or two of Wordsworth, Milton, Tennyson, or Scott.