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    The Lion and the Unicorn
    The Lion and the Unicorn
    The Lion and the Unicorn
    Ebook137 pages2 hours

    The Lion and the Unicorn

    By Richard Harding Davis

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    About this ebook

    This early work by Richard Harding Davis was originally published in 1899 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Lion and the Unicorn' is a collection of short stories that include 'The Vagrant', 'On the Fever Ship', and 'The Last Ride Together'. Davis attended Lehigh University and Johns Hopkins University, but was asked to leave both due to neglecting his studies in favour socialising. During the Second Boer War in South Africa, Davis was a leading correspondent of the conflict. He saw the war first-hand from both parties perspectives and documented it in his publication 'With Both Armies' (1900). He wrote widely from locations such as the Caribbean, Central America, and even from the perspective of the Japanese forces during the Russo-Japanese War. Davis died following a heart attack on 11th April, 1916, at the age of 51.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWhite Press
    Release dateOct 29, 2014
    ISBN9781473396487
    Author

    Richard Harding Davis

    Richard Davis was born and educated in Melbourne and now lives in Queensland. He was encouraged in his writing by Alan Marshall, Ivan Southall and later, Nobel prize-winning author Patrick White. Richard pursued a successful career in commerce before taking up full-time writing in 1997. Since then his published works have included three internationally acclaimed biographies of musicians: Geoffrey Parsons - Among Friends (ABC Books), Eileen Joyce: A Portrait (Fremantle Press) and Anna Bishop - The Adventures of an Intrepid Prima Donna (Currency Press). The latest in this series is Wotan’s Daughter - The Life of Marjorie Lawrence.

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    • 3/5
      Not bad, not exciting. A collection of short stories; many of them are romances (boy meets girl, trouble, HAE). Each was pleasant to read (ok, _most_ of them were pleasant to read), none stand out in my memory. The Picture was interesting, though I hope his experiment doesn't put him off all women, and it was amusing how he could surprise himself with her words - with what he thought would be her words. The one about Cuba was depressing. The last one, about the young man who ran away, was headed for bland sweetness - then took an abrupt turn into nearly-depressing. But he made a good choice at the end. I wish, though, that he didn't so casually dismiss what he'd built - it wasn't all he could do, but it wasn't despicable. The Fever Dream was another with very striking language. I enjoyed reading it, and I'm completely uninterested in reading it again. I might look for more by Davis, but I'd avoid another collection like this one - one after another blurs into dullness, for me.

    Book preview

    The Lion and the Unicorn - Richard Harding Davis

    THE LION AND THE UNICORN

    by

    Richard Harding Davis

    Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    IN MEMORY OF MANY HOT DAYS AND SOME HOT CORNERS

    THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO

    LT.-COL. ARTHUR H. LEE, R.A.

    British Military Attache with the United States Army

    Contents

    THE LION AND THE UNICORN

    Richard Harding Davis

    THE LION AND THE UNICORN

    ON THE FEVER SHIP

    THE MAN WITH ONE TALENT

    THE VAGRANT

    THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

    A SKETCH CONTAINING THREE POINTS OF VIEW

    Richard Harding Davis

    Richard Harding Davis was born on 18th April 1864, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of two writers, Rebecca Harding Davis (a prominent author), and Lemuel Clarke Davis (a journalist and editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger).

    Davis attended Lehigh University and Johns Hopkins University, but was asked to leave both due to neglecting his studies in favour socialising. With some help from his father, Davis was able to find a position as a journalist at the Philadelphia Record, but was soon fired from the post. He then spent a short time at the Philadelphia Press before moving to the New York Evening Sun, where he became a controversial figure, writing on subjects such as execution, abortion, and suicide. He went on to edit Harper’s Weekly and write for the New York Herald, The Times, and Scribner’s Magazine.

    During the Second Boer War in South Africa, Davis was a leading correspondent of the conflict. He saw the war first-hand from both parties perspectives and documented it in his publication With Both Armies (1900). Later in his career he wrote a story about his experience on a United States Navy ship that shelled Cuba as part of the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. His article made the headlines and prompted the Navy to refuse to allow reporters aboard their vessels for the remainder of the war.

    He wrote widely from locations such as the Caribbean, Central America, and even from the perspective of the Japanese forces during the Russo-Japanese War. He also covered the Salonika Front in the First World War, where he spent a time detained by the Germans on suspicion of being a spy.

    Davis married twice, first to Cecil Clark in 1899, and then to Bessie McCoy in 1912, with whom he had one daughter. Davis died following a heart attack on 11th April, 1916, at the age of 51.

    THE LION AND THE UNICORN

    Prentiss had a long lease on the house, and because it stood in Jermyn Street the upper floors were, as a matter of course, turned into lodgings for single gentlemen; and because Prentiss was a Florist to the Queen, he placed a lion and unicorn over his flowershop, just in front of the middle window on the first floor. By stretching a little, each of them could see into the window just beyond him, and could hear all that was said inside; and such things as they saw and heard during the reign of Captain Carrington, who moved in at the same time they did! By day the table in the centre of the room was covered with maps, and the Captain sat with a box of pins, with different-colored flags wrapped around them, and amused himself by sticking them in the maps and measuring the spaces in between, swearing meanwhile to himself. It was a selfish amusement, but it appeared to be the Captain's only intellectual pursuit, for at night, the maps were rolled up, and a green cloth was spread across the table, and there was much company and popping of soda-bottles, and little heaps of gold and silver were moved this way and that across the cloth. The smoke drifted out of the open windows, and the laughter of the Captain's guests rang out loudly in the empty street, so that the policeman halted and raised his eyes reprovingly to the lighted windows, and cabmen drew up beneath them and lay in wait, dozing on their folded arms, for the Captain's guests to depart. The Lion and the Unicorn were rather ashamed of the scandal of it, and they were glad when, one day, the Captain went away with his tin boxes and gun-cases piled high on a four-wheeler.

    Prentiss stood on the sidewalk and said: I wish you good luck, sir. And the Captain said: I'm coming back a Major, Prentiss. But he never came back. And one day—the Lion remembered the day very well, for on that same day the newsboys ran up and down Jermyn Street shouting out the news of a 'orrible disaster to the British arms. It was then that a young lady came to the door in a hansom, and Prentiss went out to meet her and led her upstairs. They heard him unlock the Captain's door and say, This is his room, miss, and after he had gone they watched her standing quite still by the centre table. She stood there for a very long time looking slowly about her, and then she took a photograph of the Captain from the frame on the mantel and slipped it into her pocket, and when she went out again her veil was down, and she was crying. She must have given Prentiss as much as a sovereign, for he called her Your ladyship, which he never did under a sovereign.

    And she drove off, and they never saw her again either, nor could they hear the address she gave the cabman. But it was somewhere up St. John's Wood way.

    After that the rooms were empty for some months, and the Lion and the Unicorn were forced to amuse themselves with the beautiful ladies and smart-looking men who came to Prentiss to buy flowers and buttonholes, and the little round baskets of strawberries, and even the peaches at three shillings each, which looked so tempting as they lay in the window, wrapped up in cotton-wool, like jewels of great price.

    Then Philip Carroll, the American gentleman, came, and they heard Prentiss telling him that those rooms had always let for five guineas a week, which they knew was not true; but they also knew that in the economy of nations there must always be a higher price for the rich American, or else why was he given that strange accent, except to betray him into the hands of the London shopkeeper, and the London cabby?

    The American walked to the window toward the west, which was the window nearest the Lion, and looked out into the graveyard of St. James's Church, that stretched between their street and Piccadilly.

    You're lucky in having a bit of green to look out on, he said to Prentiss. I'll take these rooms—at five guineas. That's more than they're worth, you know, but as I know it, too, your conscience needn't trouble you.

    Then his eyes fell on the Lion, and he nodded to him gravely. How do you do? he said. I'm coming to live with you for a little time. I have read about you and your friends over there. It is a hazard of new fortunes with me, your Majesty, so be kind to me, and if I win, I will put a new coat of paint on your shield and gild you all over again.

    Prentiss smiled obsequiously at the American's pleasantry, but the new lodger only stared at him.

    He seemed a social gentleman, said the Unicorn, that night, when the Lion and he were talking it over. Now the Captain, the whole time he was here, never gave us so much as a look. This one says he has read of us.

    And why not? growled the Lion. I hope Prentiss heard what he said of our needing a new layer of gilt. It's disgraceful. You can see that Lion over Scarlett's, the butcher, as far as Regent Street, and Scarlett is only one of Salisbury's creations. He received his Letters-Patent only two years back. We date from Palmerston.

    The lodger came up the street just at that moment, and stopped and looked up at the Lion and the Unicorn from the sidewalk, before he opened the door with his night-key. They heard him enter the room and feel on the mantel for his pipe, and a moment later he appeared at the Lion's window and leaned on the sill, looking down into the street below and blowing whiffs of smoke up into the warm night-air.

    It was a night in June, and the pavements were dry under foot and the streets were filled with well-dressed people, going home from the play, and with groups of men in black and white, making their way to supper at the clubs. Hansoms of inky-black, with shining lamps inside and out, dashed noiselessly past on mysterious errands, chasing close on each other's heels on a mad race, each to its separate goal. From the cross streets rose the noises of early night, the rumble of the 'buses, the creaking of their brakes, as they unlocked, the cries of the extras, and the merging of thousands of human voices in a dull murmur. The great world of London was closing its shutters for the night, and putting out the lights; and the new lodger from across the sea listened to it with his heart beating quickly, and laughed to stifle the touch of fear and homesickness that rose in him.

    I have seen a great play to-night, he said to the Lion, nobly played by great players. What will they care for my poor wares? I see that I have been over-bold. But we cannot go back now—not yet.

    He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and nodded good-night to the great world beyond his window. What fortunes lie with ye, ye lights of London town? he quoted, smiling. And they heard him close the door of his bedroom, and lock it for the night.

    The next morning he bought many geraniums from Prentiss and placed them along the broad cornice that stretched across the front of the house over the shop window. The flowers made a band of scarlet on either side of the Lion as brilliant as a Tommy's jacket.

    I am trying to propitiate the British Lion by placing flowers before his altar, the American said that morning to a visitor.

    The British public you mean, said the visitor; they are each likely to tear you to pieces.

    Yes, I have heard that the pit on the first night of a bad play is something awful, hazarded the American.

    Wait and see, said the visitor.

    Thank you, said the American, meekly.

    Every one who came to the first floor front talked about a play. It seemed to be something of great moment to the American. It was only a bundle of leaves printed in red and black inks and bound in brown paper covers. There were two of them, and the American called them by different names: one was his comedy and one was his tragedy.

    They are both likely to be tragedies, the Lion heard one of the visitors say to another, as they drove away together. Our young friend takes it too seriously.

    The American spent most of his time by his desk at the

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