CHAPTER XXXI
THE INHERITANCE
“Look, look, Tahmeroo, yonder is your home! To the right, to the left, on either side, from horizon to horizon the land is yours!”
It was Walter Butler’s voice, exultant and loud, addressing his wife as they came in sight of Ashton.
Tahmeroo leaned out of the carriage, and looked around with a glow of proud delight. How different this scene from the broad forests of her native land—how calm and beautiful lay the hills and fields, rolling westward from the eminence upon which they had paused! A thousand blossoming hedges chained them together, as it were, with massive and interminable garlands. She saw clumps of trees, vividly green cascades and brooks meandering towards the one bright stream which cut the lands in twain. Upon the opposite hillside stood a mansion, vast, stately and old, towering upwards from a park of fine oaks, and chestnuts heavy with flowers. A prince might have looked proudly on a domain like that without asking for more.
“And is this all mine—my own, to do with as I please?” said Tahmeroo, turning her brilliant eyes from the landscape to Butler’s face. “That pretty village, the old church, and all?”
“Yes, my red bird, you are mistress here—everything is yours.”
“Not so,” answered Tahmeroo, and her bright eyes filled. “What is Tahmeroo without her husband? it is his, everything—Tahmeroo wants nothing but his love.”
“But words cannot convey property, my bird; it takes yellow parchment and wax, and the signing of names, to change an estate.”
“But there must be plenty of parchment in that grand old house, and, thank the Great Spirit, Tahmeroo can write beautifully, like Catharine her mother. She will not shame the white brave in his new home—he shall yet be a great chief among these proud people.”
“And you will do this willingly, my wild-rose?” cried Butler, with a glitter of the eyes, from which even the confiding wife had learned to shrink. “It will be easily done; the entailed portion of the estates are large enough for any woman; as for the rest——”