A. T. Quiller-Couch

“ He reached the sign-post and walked past it—yes, for the first and last time in his life—without so much as a thought for his parole. The gate of the cottage stood ajar, and he pushed it wide with his stick.
There were signs of trampling on the flower beds; but the whole garden blitzed with flowers—tall hollyhocks, carnations, sweet-peas, sweet-williams and ten-week stocks—above all, with the yellow monkey-flowers which grew so profusely in the marshy soil by the lower hedge. ”

“ There are, I suppose, half a dozen trout at most in the stream—or, as we proudly call it, "the revvur"—between the village and Loose-heels; but I never spy one without a thought for his ancestors whom Monsieur Benest used to hook so apologetically and so hastily restore. The poor man started with no knowledge of the art and to the end would sigh whenever his top-piece quivered with a bite. ”

“ He was unaware that tongues wagged in wonder how the Outlandish Ladies supported life, and when a withering suspicion began to blow upon them over the mysterious disappearance of sheep from Carne farm, up the valley, he caught no breath of it. It so happened that on the fatal day in July when the populace—Parson Morth being away on a visit to Exeter—took the law into their own hands and broke into the cottage to search. ”