This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... DAVENPORT CHAPTER I IN October 1908 I was called down to Kingscote, a village in Gloucestershire, to hear the last words of a man who had saved my life in Constantinople ten years earlier in circumstances that have nothing to do with my story. It is enough to say that George Dyer was known in ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... DAVENPORT CHAPTER I IN October 1908 I was called down to Kingscote, a village in Gloucestershire, to hear the last words of a man who had saved my life in Constantinople ten years earlier in circumstances that have nothing to do with my story. It is enough to say that George Dyer was known in Kingscote as a respectable stone-mason who had once been a sailor, and that I was not known in Kingscote at all. After the funeral I decided to stop in Kingscote for a week longer. I will not deny that the merits of my landlady, Mrs. Andrews, had something to do with my decision. She was a tall, pretty, fair woman, an ex-parlourmaid in a titled family, and the second and devoted wife of her inarticulate husband, who relied upon her superior intelligence in all practical affairs. Entirely without curiosity herself, she was a tactful barrier to curiosity in other people; and she could fry potatoes better than any woman I have ever known before or since. She browned them without making them too dry; adding just enough cabbage to give a marbled appearance. Apart from the comfort of the inn, this part of Gloucestershire had a strange fascination for me. I was not sure if it proceeded from liking or disliking, and I could not get away until I had cleared the matter up. Kingscote stands on the wooded range of low hills, parallel to the Severn, though at some distance from it, where the Romans had a chain of outposts commanding the Welsh marches. Between the hills and the Severn there are sedgy flats, parcelled out by little canals that bring sails and cows together, with occasional bluffs and terraces of red sandstone. "Silurian " is the word that comes into my head to describe the landscape, though I don't know if it is geologically correct. Anyhow, the...
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