The Sensory Animals of Ston Hill

Alan Ston stood up quickly. His usual military training made him not look flustered when he turned around, and his expression was almost impeccable.His black coat helped him even more, helping him hide the biggest flaw.

William's face was extremely complicated, surprise, doubt, self-blame, etc., appeared at the same time when he looked at Alan.In Stone's eyes.

Alan Stone's heart was beating fast, but after being examined by such eyes, he calmed down and asked William: "What's wrong with you, you seem to be very uncomfortable?"

William obviously hesitated, it might be a better choice to pretend nothing happened.But the vigilance of a male animal in his body couldn't be ignored. He finally chose to stride forward, and then saw Grace being pulled down to the sleeve of his wrist.

His anger suddenly rose to the peak, he pushed his brother aside forcefully, bent down and pulled back Grace's sleeve.

He stood up straight again, suppressed his anger and said, "You better explain it!"

Alan Stone's face also darkened. He didn't know how long William Stone stood at the door, and he regretted that he didn't hear the door open.But he knew he didn't have to be afraid, and William didn't have the right to question him like this.

Because, "Do you think I'm like you?"

As he expected, all of William's righteous indignation and dignity were completely crushed by his words.

But Allen didn't plan to let his brother go.He firmly grabbed William's hand and moved towards Grace's face, "What do you think I'm doing? Do you think I was kissing her just now? You can check it yourself, you should know that her lips were kissed What is it like!"

William's fingertips touched Grace's lips. At this moment, he finally had the strength to break away from Allen, and took a few steps back, as far away from the bed as possible.He was trembling all over, and his face was bloodless.

He stared at Grace's sleeping face for a while, then turned around abruptly to leave, but Alan Ston stepped forward to stop him, and said in a commanding tone: "You should say goodbye to her, this is the very least. "

Grace couldn't lie still anymore, if it wasn't for cowardice, he should have "woke up" just now, so that William would be less insulted.

It was he who created the only stain in William's life, and it was he who should have accepted the humiliation, not William.

Grace sat up in bed and asked them, "What time is it?"

The two men turned their heads at the same time, and William's face was so pale that Grace's heart hurt like a needle.

Alan Stone took a look at his pocket watch from his pocket and replied, "It's past five o'clock."

Grace didn't dare to look at him, she lowered her eyes, "I have to go back."

Alan Ston asked William: "Are you going to see her off? It's getting dark, and there may be robbers on the road, robbing people like her who are well dressed and haven't brought a servant."

William didn't speak.Alan Stone was like an actor occupying the entire stage, "Okay, I'll see her off." Then he said to Grace: "I'm not sure if your cowpox was successfully inoculated, and you haven't woken up yet. I just took a look at the scar on your arm, I don't think you will mind?"

"Why do you think I don't mind?" Grace raised her head and stared at him. "This kind of behavior is not appropriate. If someone else is sleeping here, would you do the same thing to her?"

Grace felt that His Majesty should really come to see Alan Stone's face at this time. The best actors were far behind him.Immediately, he realized that his expression should be ugly, and he lowered his head again, "Can you go out first? Help me call Eva and Anna in, thank you."

After a while, two girls came in and helped him recomb his hair.Alan Stone called for a carriage and was already waiting at the door. He wanted to help Grace into the carriage as usual. Although Grace was very reluctant in her heart, he did not dare to refuse because William was watching from the side.

Grace also noticed that Alan Stone was also nervous, and the posture of the hands supporting her arms was very stiff.

This shattered the last bit of luck in his heart: he was indeed not dreaming at that time, those touches were real.

On the way back to the palace, Alan Stone kept trying to talk to him, and Grace knew he was testing herself.This made Grace extremely puzzled: So he was also afraid, but since he was so afraid of being known by him, why did he do that just now?

He couldn't act like Alan Stone, and he couldn't forgive him talking to William like that, closing his eyes and pretending to be sleepy all the way.

When approaching a square, the road ahead was blocked by crowds, and at the same time there was an endless stream of people walking in that direction.Some children ran past their car, shouting excitedly: "There is another beheading! Come and see the beheading!"

It was so loud that Grace had to open her eyes and asked Alan Stone, "What are they talking about?"

Alan Stone didn't expect him to talk to himself suddenly, and the groom in front replied first: "Today is the day of execution, there must be another wonderful executioner!" He was as excited as those children, happily Ask Grace: "Miss, let's go see it too! If you go late, you won't have a good seat!"

Alan Ston reprimanded: "What's so interesting about that! Hurry up and turn around and go around by another road!"

But Grace deliberately opposed him this time, and ordered the coachman: "Go ahead, go to the square in front, I want to see!"

Alan Stone glared at him, and ordered the driver to detour again.Grace took out a gold louis and threw it to the coachman: "Go ahead!"

Now the coachman tried his best to drive the carriage over.

There are already many people waiting in front of the execution platform, which is as tall as one person.Although Alan Stone did not agree with Grace's behavior, he still gave some money to the guards who maintained the order of the execution, and changed their carriage to the front position.This side is a good location, they are all carriages, unlike the crowded people behind, there are always people trying to climb onto their carriages.

There were many high-end carriages around them, and fashionable women sat in them.They sat quietly, fanning their little fans gracefully, and it seemed to Grace that she was in a theater waiting patiently for the scene to begin.Vendors weave through the crowd, hawking cheap booze and cheap snacks, just like those hawking at the door of a theater.

Alan Stone asked Grace if she was hungry.Grace shook her head, he felt that the air here was very smelly, and the atmosphere made him uneasy.He began to regret being so angry with Alan Stone.

"Don't watch it when the execution is actually executed. Close your eyes and plug your ears." Alan Stone instructed.

Both Eva and Anna nodded, and Grace was a little annoyed that they listened to Alan Stone like this, but he didn't refute it himself, because the anxiety in his heart was getting stronger.He smelled blood in the stale air, and he realized that this was not a backyard where cattle were slaughtered.This is the smell of human blood.

Alan Stone stopped a boy who sold newspapers and bought a pamphlet from him, which contained the information of the prisoner.

The boy selling the newspaper enthusiastically opened the pamphlet, "The highlight! He is a political prisoner! Behead him!" Every sentence he said was short and full of excitement.

Grace didn't know what a political prisoner was, but he refrained from asking Alan Stone.

"No wonder..." Alan Stone muttered to himself as he browsed the pamphlet.Grace squinted at the writing, there was a word he didn't recognize.

"But it won't be a sentence of beheading." Alan Stone was still talking to himself with a very serious expression.

Grace finally couldn't bear it and asked, "What does this mean?"

"Black slaves?" Alan Stone looked at the word he was referring to, "They are people who were bought from Africa and sent to work in the colonies."

Grace understood that the person who was going to be executed next was because he freed the black slaves from a certain plantation in the colony without authorization.

"Why did he do this?"

"doing what?"

"Release someone else's servant."

"A nigger is not a servant, Grace."

"Is there any difference?"

Alan Stone didn't answer.

"Then he was brought back from the New World?"

"Yes."

"Why not execute it directly where he committed the crime? Isn't the New World far away? Why bring him back? Isn't that very troublesome?"

Alan Ston closed the booklet, looked up at the execution platform, and frowned, "It's just that someone wants to do it. Don't have so many problems, Grace." Then he said: "You shouldn't read This is not good for people, let's go."

But Grace ignored him again.

The prisoner was finally brought over, and the crowd who had been waiting for a long time burst into cheers.

The man was well dressed, with a white shirt with lace sleeves and a vest over it.His hair was a little disheveled, but he looked generally educated, and Grace couldn't figure out why he would do that.The condemned prisoner didn't need to be chased away, the two guards only had to walk behind him, and he walked up the steps of the execution platform by himself.

Grace watched his feet, gradually understanding with each step he took that he was going to die.Although he did not agree with this person's previous behavior, he admired his courage at this time.

But the prisoner fell down after climbing onto the execution platform, and the people in the audience roared with laughter.The prisoner got up amidst such laughter, and Grace saw that his shirt sleeves had turned red.

It was the blood on the ground that made him slip.

Grace suddenly felt frightened.

A guard read aloud the prisoner's crimes, and the crowd cheered or spat in response to his reading.

"Grace, I'm a little scared," Anna said.

"Don't be afraid, he is a bad person." Eva comforted, but her voice was tight, obviously she was also afraid.

Grace glanced back, the road was completely blocked, and people's faces were full of eager passion.Grace thought of the day of the Easter celebration.

The prisoner was pressed by the shoulders by two guards to the position where he was about to be beheaded, and he was fixed on his stomach. The priest squatted beside him and prayed for him on his deathbed.

"In the name of respecting His Majesty the Great, Good, and Beautiful King—" The executioner raised the ax high, and then lowered it... It fell off the side, and the ax was embedded in the man's back.

"Ah!—" Anna yelled with the crowd, except that the crowd was joyful and she was purely frightened.Alan Stone told her to close her eyes, she must have peeked.

Eva hugged Anna's head, and the two of them closed their eyes tightly.Grace's teeth chattered as she watched the executioner try to yank the ax out of the man's bones.The ax must have been jammed tightly, and it took the executioner a long time to get it right.During this process, the prisoner kept crying in pain.

Grace remembered that Butler Ward hadn't shouted that.

Alan Stone held his head the way Eva held Anna.He didn't resist, lying in Alan Stone's arms, he heard Alan yelling to order the driver to turn around.

The most exciting part of the stage was being played, and their U-turn caused dissatisfaction among the audience.No one bothered to make way for them, and the car couldn't turn around.

"In the name of respecting His Majesty the Great, Good and Beautiful King—" Grace heard a second scream and cheers.Then came the third, fourth... The screams became weaker and louder, while the cheers became louder.The carnival overwhelmed the screams, and the horror grew stronger.

"God, please, can't you cut more accurately!" Grace shouted in her heart.

No one shouted "In the name of His Majesty the Great, Good and Beautiful King", and it could be judged from the wild cheers of the people that the head had been chopped off.

Grace suddenly raised her head from Alan Stone's arms, and he wanted to take a look.

On a wooden platform as tall as a person, facing them is a section of a neck without a head.Blood spurted from this uneven section of flesh and blood in a fountain, like Steward Ward's blood.Grace made an "uh" in her throat.

Alan Stone thought he was going to pass out, so he hurriedly opened the snuff box he had prepared earlier, and wanted Grace to sniff it twice.Grace pushed his hand away violently, threw herself into his arms and trembled violently, Eva and Anna were retching.

Alan Stone put one hand on the back of Grace's neck, waved the other hand backwards, and shouted loudly: "Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" The car finally squeezed out.

The air was clear, and Alan Stone gently stroked Grace's neck, "It's over."

Grace shivered when he touched her, and quickly sat up in his arms.His hair was a little messed up and his eyes were a little red.He thought of his actions just now, and felt that it was very inappropriate. He didn't dare to look at Alan Stone at the moment, and looked around with his eyes rolling.

Suddenly, his eyeballs stopped moving, he stared in one direction and opened his mouth slightly, his expression was more terrifying than when he saw the beheading just now.

Alan Stone followed his line of sight and saw a row of fences in front of the church.It was an iron fence with tall spikes.A human head was inserted into one of the tips, and this human head had a big nose, which was the same one that he joked about today.