Davenport

“ Davenport, who, of course, was present.
"I hear it is for profane speaking and reviling," answered Davenport.
"If everybody was to have his desarts," said our friend, Tom Gladding, squirting a stream of tobacco juice over the floor, "I guess, some others would be worse off," and he looked sharply at Davenport.
"It is time such things should be punished," said Davenport. "People begin to act as if there was no law in the country."
"Don't you be quite so hard on a fellow," said Tom. ”

“ Mr. Davenport laid an unfinished cartoon on the desk, representing a chariot race, and laughed when he explained what it would be and mean; and this told me that he enters heartily in whatever he draws, which is requisite to success in art as well as in other things. Then we adjourned to another room and sat about a wood fire.
“Tell me of your beginning,” I said.
“Well, I was born in Oregon, thirty-five years ago, on my father’s farm. As a child, I was perpetually drawing, and to my father I owe much, for it was he who encouraged me, my mother dying when I was very young. ”

“ The writer is indebted for an initiation into the mysteries of the Davenport Brothers’ rope-tying to Mr. H. Morgan Robinson (Professor Helmann) , of Washington, D. C., a very clever prestidigitateur.
In the year 1895, after an unbroken silence of nineteen years, Fay, ex-assistant of the Davenports, determined to resume the profession of public medium. [Pg 147] He abandoned his sheep ranch and hunted up Ira Davenport. They gave several performances in Northern towns, and finally landed at the Capital of the Nation, in the spring of 1895, and advertised several séances at Willard’s Hall. ”

“ Yours truly,
“FRANCIS TURL.”
“Francis Turl,” repeated Larcher. “I never heard the name before.”
“No, I suppose you never have,” replied Davenport, dryly. “But what character would you infer from his penmanship?”
“Well,—I don't know.” Put to the test, Larcher was at a loss. “An educated person, I should think; even scholarly, perhaps. Fastidious, steady, exact, reserved,—that's about all.”
“Not very much,” said Davenport, taking back the sheet. “You merely describe the handwriting itself. Your characterization, as far as it goes, would fit men who write very differently from this. ”

“ The interruption at the conference had not a little offended Davenport. A pompous and conceited man, any slight to himself, any failure to accord a deference he considered his due, he felt sensibly as an injury; much more, then, an open defiance and direct attack. That Holden or any one should have the hardihood, before an assemblage of his friends and acquaintances, to interrupt him and load him with reproaches, wounded his self love to the quick, and he fancied it would affect his reputation and influence in the community were the offence to be passed over without notice. ”

“ You don't know how earnestly he wished that.”
“Surely Davenport's wishes can't be endangered through my knowledge of any secret,” Florence replied, with so much sad affection that Turl was again visibly moved. “But for the misunderstanding which kept us apart, he would not have had this secret from me. And to think!—he disappeared the very day Mr. Larcher was to enlighten him. It was cruel! And now you would keep from me the knowledge of what became of him. I have learned too well that fate is pitiless; and I find that men are no less so.” ”

“ Davenport had more particular reasons to remember that play.”
Davenport looked up from his plate, but merely with slight surprise, not with disapproval. Bagley himself stared hard at Larcher, then glanced at Davenport, and finally blurted out a laugh, and said:
“So Dav has been giving you his fairy tale? I thought he'd dropped it as a played-out chestnut. God knows how the delusion ever started in his head. That's a question for the psychologists—or the doctors, maybe. But he used to imagine—I give him credit for really imagining it—he used to imagine he had written that play. ”

“ At that time I was a needy man, and I had borrowed money of him, which I have never repaid. That is so. During the time Mr. Davenport was ill--was suffering from this delusion or suspicion--I was constantly with him. I do not think he disclosed to any one but me the delusions or suspicions he was under. When he recovered he made me swear most solemnly I would never tell a soul. Then he lent me, or, if you prefer it, gave me, more money, and left Florence, and I lost sight of him until I met him in Ireland. ”

“ No threatened men live longer, as a class, than those who have themselves as threateners. It was true, Larcher had seen in Davenport's copy of Keats, this passage marked:
“... for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death.”
But an unhappy man might endorse that saying without a thought of possible self-destruction. So, for Davenport's very silence on that way of escape from his tasteless life, Larcher thought he might have taken it.
He confided this thought to no less a person than Bagley, some weeks after the return of that capitalist from Chicago. ”

“ Captain Davenport asked abruptly.
McCoy, without shifting his gaze, answered softly:
"Why, let her drive, captain. That is all we can do. All the Paumotus are before us. We can drive for a thousand miles through reefs and atolls. We are bound to fetch up somewhere."
"Then drive it is." Captain Davenport evidenced his intention of descending to the deck. "We've missed Mangareva. God knows where the next land is. I wish I'd held her up that other half-point," he confessed a moment later. "This cursed current plays the devil with a navigator." ”

“ Davenport's visit to the Black Rock that day had not been one of mere curiosity, although nothing of import to her life was likely to result from it. Her career was over, if, indeed, it might be said ever to have begun.
In her younger days she had been abandoned by the only man she had ever loved, and wed to a man whom she never loved, whom she could not even esteem. ”

“ And this is what his mind was full of at the time when you, Larcher, were working with him.
“He imagined a man such as would be produced by the happiest conditions; one of those fortunate fellows who seem destined for easy, pleasant paths all their lives. A habitually lucky man, in short, with all the cheerfulness and urbanity that such a man ought to possess. Davenport believed that as such a man he would at least not be handicapped by the name or suspicion of ill-luck. ”

“ I knew him abroad before I met him in Ireland. It was in Florence that I met him first. I was introduced to him by an American gentleman, a sculptor by profession. I saw a good deal of Mr. Davenport when I was in Florence. I am now speaking of eleven or twelve years ago. While I was on friendly terms with him in that city his mind was affected. He suffered from a delusion that there was a conspiracy to kill and rob him. He usually at that time carried valuable jewels and considerable sums of money on his person. ”

“ The next white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and seventy years later--in 1834. Davenport has gathered its thirty thousand people within the past thirty years. She sends more children to her schools now, than her whole population numbered twenty-three years ago. ”

“ Bud went on, “you may discover enough to make Mr. Turl see his way clear to tellin' what he knows about Davenport. Him an' Davenport may 'a' been in some scheme together. They may 'a' been friends, or they may 'a' been foes. He may be in Davenport's confidence at the present moment; or he may 'a' had a hand in gettin' rid o' Davenport. Or then again, whatever was between 'em mayn't 'a' had anything to do with the disappearance; an' Turl mayn't want to own up to knowin' Davenport, for fear o' bein' connected with the disappearance. ”

“ At this time the Northwest territory was peopled entirely by Indians, with here and there one of a different race fearless enough to brave the dangers of a frontier life. Le Claire purchased the claim upon which the city of Davenport was laid out for one hundred and fifty dollars. In 1835, he sold it to a company who commenced the building of the city. The first ferry between Davenport and Rock Island dates from 1835. It was a flatboat propelled by oars. At present a large steamboat is constantly employed in transferring passengers and freight between these cities. ”

“ Erle looked more puzzled than ever. “I can not understand it,” he said, in a most perplexed voice. “If she be your cousin, Crystal Ferrers, why does she call herself Crystal Davenport? There can be no question of identity; that is the face of the Miss Davenport I know—the young governess who lives with the Traffords; that is the very ring she wears, too”—with another quick glance at the hand that was holding a sheaf of white lilies. ”

“ Davenport, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said O'Brien; "but why did he make away with himself? If a man knows he's innocent, he needn't run off and drown himself. He must have remembered Mr. Davenport gave him the money. Why didn't he trust Mr. Davenport to clear him?"
The three men shook their heads.
"That's what puzzles me," said O'Brien. "This unfortunate man was fond of fishing."
"And little's the good he got by it," said one of the fishermen. "He had a miserable cockleshell of a punt, and it was the wonder of every one he wasn't drowned seven days in the week. ”

“ It was a lucky thing for Ben Davenport that he got hold of the bay horse, as most all of the property that he accumulated afterward was directly or indirectly due to the big bay horse. Everybody that came into that part of the country owned him at least a day, and he put several gypsy camps out of business. Whenever a stranger came over the road, Uncle Ben had occasion to go out with the big bay; and unless the man knew the horse he couldn’t resist giving everything he had for him, and a little to boot. ”

“ He had thought nothing the widow could tell him would take him by surprise, and here he now was fairly breathless and amazed. There was no doubt in his mind this Fahey had not been the social equal of Marion Butler, and Blake was of opinion the man's origin had been much lower than Mr. Davenport's, though whence the dead man had sprung he did not exactly know. Kilcash House had not always been the dead man's property. He had bought it only a little while before his marriage. Davenport seemed to be a man accustomed to meet men only. ”

“ Every slow movement was a protest and a threat. The atmosphere was moist and sticky like mucilage, and in the absence of wind all hands seemed to pant and gasp for air. The sweat stood out on faces and bare arms, and Captain Davenport for one, his face more gaunt and care-worn than ever, and his eyes troubled and staring, was oppressed by a feeling of impending calamity.
"It's off to the westward," McCoy said encouragingly. "At worst, we'll be only on the edge of it." ”

“ Davenport drew himself up hurriedly, and looking furiously at Pringle from head to foot, as though the solicitor was the cause of all the misfortunes, cried, while his lips, hands, and legs were trembling:
"I--I go near her! Are you mad, young sir? Have you taken leave of your senses, or are you jeering at me? I go near my brother's murderess! Do you take me for a conspirator too? Do you think I am another Blake? I pity you, sir. An attorney, quotha! A man of your trade ought to have some little discrimination. You are for her, young sir! ”

“ Cecile Rush, C. W. Couldock, Charles Wheatly, J. G. Grahame and young Harry Davenport. The son of Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Davenport—he one of of the finest tragedians, and she one of the first actresses of our stage—and a brother of the great Fanny Davenport, my accompanist in "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" is an actor and a gentleman worthy of his antecedents, but in 1883 he was an insufferably fresh youth of about eighteen. One of his most objectionable habits was that of helping himself to a cigar from any pocket but his own, and lighting it airily without so much as a by-your-leave. ”

“ And, finally, had the story behind it anything to do with Edna Hill's reasons for seeking information?
Pondering these questions, Larcher found himself at the entrance to the chosen dining-place. It was a low, old-fashioned doorway, on a level with the sidewalk, a little distance off Broadway. They were just about to enter, when they heard Davenport's name called out in a nasal, overbearing voice. A look of displeasure crossed Davenport's brow, as both young men turned around. A tall, broad man, with a coarse, red face; a man with hard, glaring eyes and a heavy black mustache ”

“ In 1638 a settlement was made at Quinnipiack, afterward called New Haven, under the lead of John Davenport. The emigrants, principally from Massachusetts,—like those of the river towns,—had no patent or title to the land on which they planted, but made a number of purchases from the Indians. Here, in April, under the shelter of an oak, they listened to a sermon by Davenport, and a few days afterward formed a “plantation covenant,” as preliminary to a more formal engagement,—all agreeing to be ordered by the rule of Scripture. ”

“ With Larcher, it went the course of such images; occupied less and less of his thoughts, grew more and more vague. He no longer kept up any pretence of inquiry. He had ceased to call at police headquarters and on Mrs. Haze. That good woman had his address “in case anything turned up.” She had rented Davenport's room to a new lodger; his hired piano had been removed by the owners, and his personal belongings had been packed away unclaimed by heir or creditor. For any trace of him that lingered on the scene of his toils and ponderings, the man might never have lived at all. ”