When any one asked his father, Bladen Scarborough, who the family
ancestors were, Bladen usually did not answer at all. It was his
habit thus to treat a question he did not fancy, and, if the
question was repeated, to supplement silence with a piercing look
from under his aggressive eyebrows. But sometimes he would
answer it. Once, for example, he looked coldly at the man who,
with a covert sneer, had asked it, said, "You're impudent, sir.
You insinuate I'm not enough by myself to command your
consideration," and struck him a staggering blow across the
mouth. Again--he was in a playful mood that day and the
questioner was a woman--he replied, "I'm descended from
murderers, ma'am--murderers."

And in a sense it was the truth.

In 1568 the Scarboroughs were seated obscurely in an east county
of England. They were tenant farmers on the estates of the Earl
of Ashford and had been strongly infected with "leveling" ideas
by the refugees then fleeing to England to escape the fury of
continental prince and priest. John Scarborough was trudging
along the highway with his sister Kate. On horseback came Aubrey
Walton, youngest son of the Earl of Ashford. He admired the
rosy, pretty face of Kate Scarborough. He dismounted and,
without so much as a glance at her brother, put his arm round
her. John snatched her free. Young Walton, all amazement and
wrath at the hind who did not appreciate the favor he was
condescending to bestow upon a humble maiden, ripped out an
insult and drew his sword. John wrenched it from him and ran it
through his body.