Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1904-07-21
CHAPTER v.


Gideon and Una, and the young moon
fell peacefully on the irregular pile OF
the ancient mansion known Familiarity
for twenty miles OF It's neighborhood
as The Hurst.
The present owner was one Ralph
Davenant, or Squire Dayenant, as Jach
Newcombe had called him, and as he
was called by the county generally,
He was an old man Of eighty, who
had lived onehaIf his life In tho
widest and most dissipated fashion,
and the other half in that most I'M
profitable occupation known as re-
penting thereof
say known AS" for If old Squire
Dayenant had really repented, this
story would never have been written.
IL half the stories which were told
of him were true, Ralph Davenant,
The present owner Of rlurst, deserves
niche In the temple Of fame-or in
famy--which holds the figures Of the
worst men Of his day. He had been
gambler, a spendthriit, rogue OF the
worst kind for one half his life; n
miser, a cynlc mlsanthrope for the
other
And he now lay dying in his huge,
draughty bed-ehamber, hung with the
portraits Of his ancestors all bad and
filled with the ghosts of his youth and
wasted old age.
AS 1t was, he lay quite slill-so still
that the physician. brought down from
London nj cost of--say ten guineas
an hour, was often uncertain whether
he was alive or dead.
There was third person in the
room-a tall, thin young man who
stood motioness beside the bed,
watching the old man, with halfclosed
eyes and tightly compressed lips.
This was Stephen Dayenant. the old
mans nephew, and, rs II was generally
Understood his heir. stephen
Davenant was called u handsome man,
and at first sight he seemed to merit
that description, 1t was not until you
had looked ut him closely that you be-
gan to grow critical and to find fault
lie was dark; his hair which was
quite black, was smooth, and chung to
his head with sleek, Shiny coseness
that only served to intensity the pale
ness, not to say pallor, of the face.
Pallor was, indeed, the prevailing
characteristic, his lips even being Of
subdued and half.tintod rcd; they
were not pleasant lips, although for
every forty minutes out Of the sixty
they wore a smile which just showed
set OF large and even teeth, which
wore, If anything, too laultloss and coo
white Jack said that when stephen
smiled II was like private view Of q
cemetery
In short, 70 quote the Savage again,
stephen nayenant was an admirable
example as artists would say, OF "a
study in black and white"
As he stood by the bed motionloss,
silent with the fixed regard of ha
light gray eyes on the sick man he
looked not unlike one of those sleek
and omaciuted birds which one secs
standing ON the bank Of the Uangcs,
waiting for tho floating by of stray
dead bodies, 8
And yet he wus not unhandsome.
At times he looked remarkably we'll;
when, for instance, he was delivering
u lecture or an address ut some in
stitute or May meeting His voice was
low and soft, and not seldom inslnuat.
ing. and some of his friends had called
him. half in Jest. half In earnest,
Fascination Davenant"
1t will be gathered from this doscrip-
ton that to call all the race of Dave,
nants bad was unfair; every rule has
It's exception. and stephen Dayenant
was the exception to this, He was
"a good young man"
Fathers held him up as pattern to
their hayward sens, mothers patron.
ized and lauded him, aud their daugh.
tera regarded him rs almost too good
to live
The minutes, SO slow for the watch
ers SO rapid to The man for whom
they were numbered passed and the
old cracked clock IN the haltruined
II the Sound had reused him, old Ralph
moved slightly, and opening his eyes.
looked slowly from one upright figure
TO the other,
Dark eyes that had not even yet lost
all their fire. and still shoue ont like Il
birds from their wlullled, cayernous
hollows,
stephen unlocked his wrist. heut
down, and murmured In his soft,
silky voice;
Uncle, do YOU know meo"
4 smile, an unpleasant smile to see
ON such a face, glimmered on the old
mans lips
Here still. stephen9' he said. slow
~ and hollowly. You'd make good
mute
A faint pink tingc crept over
Stephens pale face, but he smiled and
shook his head mecklN
Who's that" asked Ralph, half