CHAPTER XV.
"Come ye, who still the cumbrous load of life Push hard up hill; but at the farthest steep You trust to gain, and put on end to strife, Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep, And hurls your labours to the valley deep;--" THOMSON.
The sudden, and, in some measure, unlooked-for event, related in the close of the last chapter, produced a great change in the condition of things at Wychecombe Hall.

The first step was to make sure that the baronet was actually dead; a fact that Sir Gervaise Oakes, in particular, was very unwilling to believe, in the actual state of his feelings.

Men often fainted, and apoplexy required _three_ blows to kill; the sick man might still revive, and at least be able to execute his so clearly expressed intentions.
"Ye'll never have act of any sort, testamentary or matrimonial, legal or illegal, in this life, from the late Sir Wycherly Wychecombe of Wychecombe Hall, Devonshire," coolly observed Magrath, as he collected the different medicines and instruments he had himself brought forth for the occasion.

"He's far beyond the jurisdiction of My Lord High Chancellor of the college of Physicians and Surgeons; and therefore, ye'll be acting prudently to consider him as deceased; or, in the light in which the human body is placed by the cessation of all the animal functions." This decided the matter, and the necessary orders were given; all but the proper attendants quitting the chamber of death.

It would be far from true to say that no one lamented Sir Wycherly Wychecombe.