The Land of Every Man (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. SUFFOLK: THE STORY OF MARGARET NOYES. ' More ?' said Preston, when he had concluded this story of the Bostonians. ' More,' said my mother. And more it was. 'Suffolk,' continued Preston, 'was among other things, a polite fiction invented by Dave- nant with a view to eluding certain embarrassing if vivid situations created by his passion for America. No other county was so eloquent, none so convincing, none so inaccessible. Therefore it was to Suffolk that Davenant invariably retired whenever the attentions of his American admirers became too acute for comfort; and once in Suffolk, there was no getting him away. To that useful if nebulous county he had betaken himself when Mrs. Carter Mayhew, of Memphis, Tennessee, confessed to the eight pairs of corsets; whenthe protracted visitations of Homer Wellington St. John, the celebrated negro orator and elocutionist, interfered too sadly with his duties; when Kitty Harrison Sinclair, the youthful drawing- room sketch-artist?but why continue? Dave- nant had fled to Suffolk and escaped. 'He had the likeness of Puck when he confessed to these adventures?and he could travel just as swiftly. Suffolk, on the map a large and level county painted a tender pink; Suffolk, devoted to agricultural pursuits and the herring industry ; whose coast-line is dotted with harmless seaside resorts and a profusion of golf-links, whose capital city is Ipswich on the Orwell; Suffolk, whose most Dionysian relaxation is the rumour of an Oyster Feast held at Colchester across the neighbouring border, had occurred to Davenant for no other reason than that it was Suffolk. What he saw in the name, why a geographical expression in which he had never set foot, on whose sights and landmarks he could scarcely have survived the faintest cross-...