CHAPTER I.A MAN OF HIS DAY.
As the Milvains sat down to breakfast the clock of Wattleborough parish church struck eight; it was two miles away, but the strokes were borne very distinctly on the west wind this autumn morning.

Jasper, listening before he cracked an egg, remarked with cheerfulness: 'There's a man being hanged in London at this moment.' 'Surely it isn't necessary to let us know that,' said his sister Maud, coldly.
'And in such a tone, too!' protested his sister Dora.
'Who is it ?' inquired Mrs Milvain, looking at her son with pained forehead.
'I don't know.

It happened to catch my eye in the paper yesterday that someone was to be hanged at Newgate this morning.

There's a certain satisfaction in reflecting that it is not oneself.' 'That's your selfish way of looking at things,' said Maud.
'Well,' returned Jasper, 'seeing that the fact came into my head, what better use could I make of it?
I could curse the brutality of an age that sanctioned such things; or I could grow doleful over the misery of the poor--fellow.

But those emotions would be as little profitable to others as to myself.