grate, and shrieked in a voice hoarse with rage,—“Robber! robber! robber! Would you rob me of my birthright? You have stolen my father’s love! Would you steal my inheritance, too? Stand back, sir; you shall not touch it! My father never meant to do it. He does not know what you have made him do—he always loved me—he never would” She looked up at her father as she spoke; and Harry, who had stood dumb beneath her torrent of abuse, and down whose cheeks two hot tears of gentle pity for her, and utter anguish for self, were slowly trickling,—Harry looked round at the Squire, too. He was sitting up in his bed; his arms were stretched out, and his hands were clasping and unclasping themselves in the air, while his lips mumbled in vain, and his eyes seemed to burn to speak. So he sat for a minute, his children rushing to his side and seizing his hands. It seemed as though his brow would crack in the agony of desire to speak. For a moment the eyes shone with a brighter lustre in the flickering flame of the burning packet, his mouth made a convulsive effort to form a word, and he fell heavily back on his pillow, dead.
There was an awful silence for a space, and then Elizabeth burst forth in a wail of sorrow and remorse. She had killed her father. She had better die to join him.
“Kill me, kill me, Harry!” she shrieked. But the utter desolation of grief that was expressed in her cousin’s face silenced her own sobs. Kneeling down by the side of the bed she hid her head in her hands, and was still.
Then came doctors and domestics. “Another stroke!”—“Poor Squire; and only five-and-forty.”—“And how did Miss Gwynne get to her father’s room?”—“Did he know her before he died?”
All these things were said as she was borne in a dull stupor to her room. Harry alone knew the truth. He saw her laid on her bed and in the custody of her women, and then retired to his own grief, and the many duties he had to perform.
In the morning the old housekeeper came to him and brought tidings of her lady. Elizabeth had slept a little in the night, and was calm now. She wished to see her cousin. She received him with great gentleness, and as one who had had her life-lesson. She knew that no apology could atone for what she had said and done. She trusted her grief would be sufficient punishment. She could not insult her cousin in his own home with her presence, after what had occurred. Immediately after the funeral she should leave Gwynne. Mrs. Griffiths had promised to go with her. She had enough to maintain her in decent respectability from what her mother had left her for pocket-money. She should not require much, for she should not live long.
“And, Harry,” she added, “when you hear that I am dead, will you let me be buried with papa in our own churchyard?” She looked him tearfully in the face.
“O Bessie, Bessie!” he broke out; “you go away!—you leave Gwynne! It is I that must go! It is yours—it is all yours! The will left it all to you. O Bessie! How could you—how could you?” But he stopped in the middle of his reproach. “Bessie, I am come to bid you good-by. You would not have me stay? It is better for us to part.”
I cannot chronicle the precise words in which Miss Gwynne, as soon as she was satisfied that she was mistress, and not guest, invited her cousin to stay. But he did stay. It was perhaps undignified in him; he had surely had warning. But he did stay. He stayed some half century longer; and there is no record in the family of his wife ever having flown in a rage with her lord.
When Mr. Deeds had driven over from Minchester, he had brought over the draught of a will, unsigned, leaving the whole estate to Elizabeth. So he had been ordered; but he strongly deprecated the notion of the Squire’s disinheriting his son for what he termed the errors of youth. He had some stormy discussion with his client, and at last left the house, leaving the will yet unsigned, and declaring that, if Mr. Gwynne was determined, some other lawyer must be employed to do the work. The Squire immediately signed the will that was afterwards burned, and Harry’s was the only evidence that could secure the property to his cousin.
Before, however, any difficulty could arise as to the succession, news arrived at Gwynne that Horace had been killed in a duel. He had married a French lady, who bore him no children, and who, at his death, came to reside in London, and was said to have made a great impression at Carlton House.
After seeing the picture, and hearing the story, I was shown the state bed-room. There stood still the broidered bed, with Queen Anne’s lilies and lions, and the brazen dogs on which the will had smouldered. I was strangely interested, I own, in Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne.
FOUR PASHAS OF EGYPT.
Whatever may be happening elsewhere, the Mediterranean will not let itself be forgotten for many days together. My last survey from my Mountain was of Greece; and now it must be Egypt.
We have seen the accession of a good many Viceroys of Egypt; but I doubt whether the present be not more important than any of the rest, or all together.
Sixteen years ago, one might see in Egypt one or other of the following personages, whichever way one turned. In the Ezbekeeyeh (the great square at Cairo) or on the road to Shoobra,—the Pasha’s great garden,—the Pasha’s carriage might be met, and in it might be seen the far-famed old Mehemet Ali, with his white beard resting on his breast, and his bright eyes telling of a youthful spirit under his weight of years. Here was the reigning sovereign, as he was in fact, though he bore the title of Viceroy.
Up the river, at a cotton factory in one place or a sugar refinery at another, might be met the stout figure and stern searching face of Ibrahim Pasha, the next heir, and so-called eldest sur-
