Sentence:  "This," said Dunraven with a vast gesture that did not <WSD>blench</WSD> at the cloudy stars, and that took in the black moors, the sea, and a majestic, tumbledown edifice that looked like a stable fallen upon hard times, "is my ancestral land." 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off.