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On Another Man's Wound

I cycled passed many a broken demesne wall, once the sign of entrenched ascendancy, now the symbol of a passing order. The walls were built when the day's labour of a tenant was tuppence; bullock's blood had been added, it was said, to bind the mortar, and the people's blood, too. The Big House might be spruce, or gaunt in decay; weeds on the avenue and families without issue. Virtue and strength was going from the leeches who had sucked life from the people. The arid brittleness or the harsh brilliance of the ascendancy mind remained. I made the men manouevre in demesne land to rid them of their inherent respect for the owners.

On Another Man's Wound 85