which trickled through the gashed socket of his eyes.

I think no one will call me cruel because I seized one of the old
executioner's swords and shore her in two as she sat.

The Secret of the Growing Gold

When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent's Rock the whole
neighbourhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal.
Scandals in connection with either the Delandre family or the Brents
of Brent's Rock, were not few; and if the secret history of the county
had been written in full both names would have been found well
represented. It is true that the status of each was so different that
they might have belonged to different continents--or to different
worlds for the matter of that--for hitherto their orbits had never
crossed. The Brents were accorded by the whole section of the country
a unique social dominance, and had ever held themselves as high above
the yeoman class to which Margaret Delandre belonged, as a
blue-blooded Spanish hidalgo out-tops his peasant tenantry.

The Delandres had an ancient record and were proud of it in their way
as the Brents were of theirs. But the family had never risen above
yeomanry; and although they had been once well-to-do in the good old
times of foreign wars and protection, their fortunes had withered
under the scorching of the free trade sun and the 'piping times of
peace.' They had, as the elder members used to assert, 'stuck to the
land', with the result that they had taken root in it, body and soul.
In fact, they, having chosen the life of vegetables, had flourished
as vegetation does--blossomed and thrived in the good season and
suffered in the bad. Their holding, Dander's Croft, seemed to have
been worked out, and to be typical of the family which had inhabited
it. The latter had declined generation after generation, sending out
now and again some abortive shoot of unsatisfied energy in the shape
of a soldier or sailor, who had worked his way to the minor grades of
the services and had there stopped, cut short either from unheeding
gallantry in action or from that destroying cause to men without
breeding or youthful care--the recognition of a position above them
which they feel unfitted to fill. So, little by little, the family
dropped lower and lower, the men brooding and dissatisfied, and
drinking themselves into the grave, the women drudging at home, or
marrying beneath them--or worse. In process of time all disappeared,
leaving only two in the Cro