Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/404

 some coming horror seemed to have paralysed all. The unfortunate lady noticed them the last, and spoke with agitation to her companion, who said,

"Don't be frightened—they are only coming to frighten the children."

As they came nearer, she caught the girl's ana, let it go again, and with a scream tried to fly.

The unhappy woman had taken a few hurried steps when her foot tripped, and she fell. It is shocking to relate, that what followed took place in presence of about a score of people—in full sight of the dwelling house on the hill. The ruffians came up to her, and as she lay at their feet, one discharged a pistol into her ear; the other fired down into her head. They then, as it was described, "went off at a slow trot across the field," passed out of it, and were never recognised again, in the dock or on the scaffold.

The pitiful nephew had seen all this; but he could not do more than shout "Aunt Jewel! what's this?" He made a hesitating attempt to come forward, more from instinct than anything else; but one of the murderer's now "leadless pistols" pointed at him, checked his course, and he turned and made off home by a circuitous route.

The attorney was busy over his accounts when he rushed in with the news. The former started up, but the young man cried:

"Don't go out or you'll be shot—they are in the field yet!"

"And you let her be shot!" said the other.

The attorney went down to the field where she lay. Hideous sights met him there, one man sobbing,

"Oh, sir, her head is off!"

What added to the strangely dramatic scene, was the man of law going down on his knees beside the body, lifting up his hands to Heaven, and swearing that he would never rest till he had revenged the murder. A sort of steward followed his example, and made a similar singular vow of vengeance. Strevans had now come down again, and the attorney, looking at him steadily as he rose from his knees, said, "This was well planned."

The nephew was arrested; and so was the attorney, much to his surprise. Suspicion, however, more directly pointed to the former, and certainly there were some strange incidents to justify that suspicion. The accounts were to be completed that day, and he knew the result was against him. It was believed that Mrs. Kelly was about to alter her will, and cut him off with a small sum in hand instead of a handsome provision in estates. There was some anxiety in him that she should come out on that fatal evening; and he was also said to be eager that the attorney should come also. It is but just to him to say, that these facts and suspicions were mainly founded on an information of his rival and enemy, couched in excited terms and reading more like a prosecutor's speech than a simple statement. It was also thought to be a bit of agrarian vengeance. The attorney, however, was soon released; no further evidence ever turned up; and the young man, after being duly called up, assize after assize, to renew his bail, was at last finally discharged. But the matter was not over yet. No one can rest under such an imputation, whether well or ill founded, and he was driven to try and clear himself in a court of law. The edifying spectacle then followed of this pair, from the witness-box, charging each other with the murder of their patroness, of both being cross-examined "severely" on that insinuation, and of both failing to persuade their jury. The attorney, now old and shattered, presented a piteous spectacle as he was subjected to this ordeal, with trembling head and hands and voice, and abundant maudlin tears.

The bulk of the property of this luckless woman passed to a doctor, who now enjoys it, and could afford to offer five hundred pounds reward for the discovery of the murderer. Such is the account of this curious career, which began so questionably and ended so dismally, and from which, without an affectation of being didactic, we may draw this moral, that the acquisition of wealth by any other than the regular slow and honourable means, brings with it but little enjoyment. The possessor is but a stranger in his own household, and invites the interested attention of sharks and harpies. This woman had to keep watch and ward over her property, to guard it against the very arts and attacks by which she herself had won it. In the end, it seemed safer to snatch it from her by bloody means. There is something piteous almost in this story of one who had fought a weary battle, from the slums upwards, against schemers, knaves, relations, and against law and lawyers, and in the end was only beaten by the savage agency of the pistol-bullet.

SEWING MACHINES.

could fill a whole number of All the Year Round with the claims of the French to every modern scientific discovery. The last claim, put forth by M. Henri de Parville, on behalf of their invention of the sewing machine, we should scarcely have noticed here, but for the important remarks of that able writer on the imperfection of the implement as it stands.

First, in respect to the invention: It appears that, about 1825, there lived at Saint Étienne (a manufacturing town to the southwest of Lyons) a poor wretch of a tailor noted for his thriftlessness and eccentricity. So far from his customers increasing, the few he had dropped off one by one; which seemed to trouble him very little. He was rarely to be found at home on his board, and still more rarely did he call for orders. In 1827 he was held to have a bee in his bonnet, and in 1829 he went for downright crazy. This reputed madman, Barthélemy Thimonnier, the son of