Daventry

“ The tragical event which consigned it to the hands of a distant branch of the Daventry family is now almost forgotten by its occupants, but still lingers in the memory of some of humbler rank, who, in days gone by, were tenants under Sir John Daventry, the last of a long line of baronets of that name. Few men have entered life under happier auspices: one of the oldest baronets in the kingdom, in one sense, but just of age, in the other, possessed of an unencumbered rent roll of £20,000 per annum, he might probably have selected his bride from the fairest of the English aristocracy ”

“ So along the old Roman street we went, passing but few human habitations, here a solitary inn, there a grey old farmstead, and every now and then a cottage, but that was all; it was pleasant driving, for there were no children, nor dogs, nor fowls for miles to trouble us, and all being safe we indulged in a burst of speed purely as a stimulant. Once on it I intended to follow the ancient street all the way to Daventry, but somehow I got wrong at a point where it takes one of its few bends, and unexpectedly found myself at Lichfield. ”

“ In spite of the Roman remains on Borough Hill, nothing is known of the town itself until the time of the Domesday Survey, when the manor consisting of eight hides belonged to the countess Judith, the Conqueror’s niece. According to tradition, Daventry was created a borough by King John, but there is no extant charter before that of Elizabeth in 1576, by which the town was incorporated under the name of the bailiff, burgesses and commonalty of the borough of Daventry. The bailiff was to be chosen every year in the Moot Hall and to be assisted by fourteen principal burgesses and a recorder. ”

“ Wednesday is still the market day. The town was an important coaching centre, and there was a large local industry in the manufacture of whips. During the civil wars Daventry was the headquarters of Charles I. in the summer of 1645, immediately before the battle of Naseby, at which he was defeated. A Cluniac priory founded here shortly after the Conquest has left no remains.
DAVEY OF FERNHURST, HORACE DAVEY, Baron (1833-1907) , English judge, son of Peter Davey, of Horton, Bucks, was born on the 30th of August 1833, and educated at Rugby and University College, Oxford. ”

“ He studied for the ministry first at Homerton, but left that institution for doctrinal reasons soon after the appointment of John Fell (1735–1797) [q. v.] In 1788 he entered Daventry academy under Thomas Belsham [q. v.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ Davenport. He is rather a little man, but he is as brave as a lion, with an eye as quick as a hawk's, decisive and rapid in executing any thing that was to be undertaken, and with wit and talent as brilliant as the sun at noon-day. I had all along felt myself more than a match for the forty attorneys and all their myrmidons; but with such a man as Mr. Davenport by my side, I held them cheap indeed. This was such an accession to my forces as I had not at all calculated upon. To Mr. Cobbett and to Sir Francis Burdett was I indebted for the able assistance of such a man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The crest of the Davenports of Cheshire, a family as numerous, according to the proverb, as ‘dogs’ tails,’ is ‘a man’s head couped below the shoulders in profile, hair brown, a halter about his neck proper.’ According to the tradition of the family, it originated after a battle between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, in which one of the Davenports, being of the vanquished party, was spared execution by the commander on the opposite side, on the humiliating condition that he and all his posterity should bear this crest. ”

“ Above all things, its position has made Devonshire a native land of heroes. Very few other counties have produced so many men of mark, so many men of enterprise [8] and daring. Certainly no other has played a greater part in the expansion of England. From Devonshire came not only some of the most distinguished seamen of the Golden Age of Elizabeth, some of the most skilful and daring of her naval captains, but some of the earliest and most famous of our explorers ”

“ 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. ”

“ After all, which was the real Krishn Davenund, which the ideal? One was the older certainly; but change must come to all things.
They had reached the river steps by this time, and he paused--making Râm Nâth pause also--to look down on a scene which had not changed a hair-breadth in essentials for thousands of years. Yet Chris Davenant's eye noted one change of detail, in a moment, as a woman passed him on her way to fill her waterpot. ”

“ There are many other towns in Devonshire that contain subject matter for our work, such as Tiverton on the Exe, and Tavistock, so beautifully situated on the banks of the Tavy. Tavistock once gloried in a fine old Abbey, and much of the present town is built out of the spoils of this venerable pile,{96} of which some remains yet stand, and it was also the birthplace of Sir Francis Drake.
Clovelly is one of the most picturesque villages in England. The street resembles a winding staircase, each house representing a step. ”

“ Beside this great picture hung a most exquisite portrait by Vandyke; an elderly, bearded man, of noble and refined countenance, in a rich, grave dress. There are many other pictures of distinguished men of the company, in long past times, and of some of the kings and great people of England, all darkened with age, and producing a rich and sombre effect, in this stately old hall. Nothing is more curious in London than these ancient localities and customs of the City Companies,—each trade and profession having its own hall, and its own institutions. ”

“ Devonshire, whence he came, has preserved more of the old features of English country life than the central and northern parts of England, where manufactures and the growth of population have swept away the venerable remains of feudalism. In Devonshire the old families are still deeply respected by the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Davenport's lover, and might love her even still. Blake had got a thousand pounds years ago from the deceased for giving up his pretensions to that lady's hand. Blake had long been abroad; turned up unexpectedly at Davenport's house in London the first night the latter was in London, and the night of his death. Blake gets a hundred pounds from Davenport, and a promise of a further hundred in a few days.
What was this money given for? Not, of course, with the old object. It did not come out at the inquest or elsewhere that the dead man had been in the least jealous of his wife. ”

“ They all wound up by saying that the inquest would be held next day.
That afternoon Richard Pringle called on chance at the house in Jermyn Street, and found Mrs. Davenport at home. She received him in a dreamy, half-conscious way, and answered listlessly the common-place questions he put to her. Before seeing her he had made up his mind not to refer to the scene which had taken place between them yesterday. He was firmly convinced she would not give him her full confidence, and that to seek to get at the bottom of the affair would be only to court obstruction. ”

“ Then look at the way he was mixed up in the Paulton and Davenport affair! Alfred, Madge's brother, succours Mrs. Davenport, and falls in love with the widow. He, Jerry O'Brien, causes a relapse in Alfred's case by some indiscreet words spoken by him of Mrs. Davenport. Then the Fishery Commissioners (whom may perdition lay hold of and keep for ever!) come howling to him about those weirs, and O'Hanlon tells him he must come over to Ireland post-haste, or he'll be picked dry as a bone by the Fishery Commissioners (whom may perdition--as before!) ”

“ But while two branches of the race grew, flourished, and fell, a third division rose to rank and fortune in this island, becoming closely allied by links of property and title with Devon, the fairest shire in the English land—links which the space of 750 years has strengthened, the glamour of an historic name, the charm of many a noble nature, have rendered unbreakable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Daudet is so unwell and fatigable and unable to walk or to mount steps or stairs (he could do Windsor Castle only from the carriage,) that I didn't know he would pull through the excursion at all—and I thought it unfair to inflict on you the awkward problem of his getting, or not getting, into your house—of his getting over to Eton at all—and of the five other members of his family being hurled upon you. ”

“ Devonshire is, in truth, a county of extraordinary contrasts. Large portions of it are extremely beautiful. Almost as large regions again are as devoid of every essential of the picturesque in a general survey as any English landscape could possibly be; mile upon mile of bare humpy hill-top, ruthlessly shorn of every stick of timber and laid out in small{164} and largely arable fields with painful chess-board regularity. ”

“ In Devonshire you have wider horizons, save for the lanes and hedges, which do their best to keep straying eyes fastened on their own beauty.
I suppose men who never have left England take such beauty for granted, but to me, after the flaunting luxuriance of the East, it is enchanting. I notice everything. I want someone, who cares for it as I do, to admire it with me. If it weren't for Dick Burden this England would be making me twenty-one again. ”

“ 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 is certainly true that at Dulverton, which, if not Exmoor, is next door to it, visitors frequently imagine that they are in Devonshire, as I have myself proved, but, for my own part, I have never attributed this delusion to the influence of Lorna Doone. On the contrary, it{xv} has seemed to me that a river is the culprit. The Exe is universally esteemed a Devon stream, and lends its name to the metropolis of the West. ”