HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 397, 7 November 1868, Page 2

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

iiY THE AUTHOR Or " BAMJAItA S ItisTOEY."

CHAPTER 111. RESOLVED.

He toolt-up .a little almanac printed on a card, and cast up the weeks between the fourth of March and the third of April. There were not quite five. Not quite five weeks to the expiration of this long, long century, during which Jacob Trefaldon's half million had been accumulating, interest upon, interest—during which whole generations have been bom, and lived, and had passed away! Good Heavens! to what a sum it had grown. It amounted now to nine million five hundred and fifty-two thousand four hundred and odd pounds ! Words — mere words ! His brain refused to release them. He might as well have tried to relise the distance between the sun and the earth. And this gigantid bequest was to be bivihed between a charity and an heir. Half! Even the half baffled him. Even tha halfseemed too vast to convey any tangible idea to his mind. Even the half amounted to four million seven hundred and seventy-six thousand two hundred and odd pounds. Pshaw! both were so inconceivable, that the one produced no more effect upon his imagination than the other.

He took up his pen, and made a rapid calculation. Supposing it were taken as an income at five per cent ? Ha! one could grasp that; at all events. It would produce about two hundred and thirty-eight thousand pounds a year ! A splendid revenue, truly; yet less than an income enjoyed by many an English nobleman ; aiid not one penny more than might be very easily and pleasantly spent by even a poor devil of an attorney like himself! It might have been his own, that princely heritage—nay, would have been, but for the accursed accident of birth ! Ifc might have been his ; and now to whom would it fall ? To a stranger—an alien—probably to an uncuit vated poor, ignorant of the very language of his forefathers ! Oh, the bitter injustice of it! Had not he at least as fair a right to this wealth? Did not he stand in precisely the same degree of relationship to. the giver of it? By what law of natural justice was the deceudent of the eldest son to revel in superfluity, while he, the decemlant of the youngest, stood on the brink of ruin ? Had it even been left for division between the survivors, both might have been rich; but now—■

He rose, pale and agitated, and paced restlessly about the room. But now, was it not evident that this heir liis born foe and despoiler, and had he not the right to hate him '? Was not the hand of the desperate man against all men, even from the very beginning ? but was it not first raised against those who had wronged him the deepest ? William Trefaliien was a desperate man. Had he hot'ap. propriated that twenty-five thousand pounds paid over to him by Lord Castlctowers two years ago for the liquidation of the mortgage, and did not ruin and discovery stare him in the face? Having hazarded name and safety on one terrible dio known only to himself, should be not hesitate to declare war upon his enemy, who was the possessor of millions ?

He smiled a strange smile of power and defiance, and ran his fingers along the black lines on the map. From Dover to Calais—from Calais, by train, to Basle—Basle to Zurich—Zurich to Chur. At Chur the railways terminate. It could not be far beyond Chur where these emigrant Trefaldens dwelt. It would take him three davs to get there, perhaps three and" a half—perhaps four. He would start tomorrow.

His decision once taken, "William Trefalden became in a moment cool and methodical as ever. All trace of excitement vanished from his face, as a breath from the surface of a mirror, lie thrust the Bradshaw in his pocket, scribbled a hasty note to his head clerk, carefully burned the cyphered blotting-paper in the flame of the lamp, and watched it expiro among the dead ashes of the fireplace ; locked his desk; tried the fastenings of his safe ; glanced at the clock, and prepared to bo gone. 'A.quarter to seven already!' exclaimed he, as he unlocked the door. ' I shall be late to night!' lie had spoken aloud, believing himself alone, but stopped at the sight of Mr Keckwitch, busily writing. 'You hero, Keckwitch!' he said, frowning. 'I told you you might go.' ' You did, sir,, replied the scrib, placidly; ' but there was Hoywood.

and Bennett's deed of partnership to be drawn up, so I would not take advantage of your kindness.' Trefaklen bit his lip. ' I had just written a lino to you,' he said, 'to let you know that 1 am going out of town for a fortnight. Forward oil letters marked private.' ' Where to, sir ?'

' You will find the address here.' And Mr Trefaklen tossed the note down upon the elerk's desk, and turned towards the door. ' Glad your're going to allow yourself a little pleasure for once, sir,' observed Mr Keekwiteh, without the faintest gleam of surprise or curiosity on the impassive countenance. 'Begging pardon for the liberty.' His employer hesitated for an instant before replying. ' Thauk you,'ho said,'but pleasure is not my object! Igo to visit a relation whom I have .neglected too long. Good night.' With this he passed from the room, and went slowly down the stairs. In the passage he paused to listen ; and when in the street, stepped out into the middle of the thoroughfare to look up at the windows. ' Strange' muttered he ; ' but I. never suspected that fellow so strongly as I do to-night!' He then glanced right and left, buttoned his coat across his chest, for the March wind blew keenly, and walked briskly up the land, in the direction of ITolboru. As he nearedthe top of the street, close to its junction with the. great thoroughfare, a thought struck him, and he flung himself back, by a rapid movement, into the recess of an old-fashioned doorway. There was no lamp within several yards. The doorway was dark and deep as a sentry-box. There, weth eager ear and bated breath, he wailed. Presently, apart from the deep hum of traffic close by, he heard a footstep cumming up —a footstep so light and swift that at first he thought he must be mistaken. Then his practised ear detected a labouring wheeze in the breath of the runner.

'The scoundrel !' ejaculated lie, poised his right arm, set his i eeth, and stood ready for a spring. The signals of distress grew more distinct—the step slackened, ceased—drew near again—and Mr Abel Keckwitch, panting and bewildered, made his appearance just opposite the doorway, dvidently baffled by the disap* pearanee of its occupant. He was not long left in doubt. Swift as a panther, William Trofahlen swooped down upon his man, and dealt him a short powerful blow that seut him reeling, pale and giddy, against the wall. lb was surprising what muscles of steel and knuckles of iron lay perdu beneath the white superficies of that supple hand. ' Dog!' said he fiercely, 'do you dare to spy at my heels ? This is not the first time I've suspected you; but I advise you to let it be the last time I convict you. Ay, you may scowl, but by the Heaven above ,me ! if I catch you at this game agaiu, you'll repent it to your dying day. There! be thankful that I let you oft' so cheaply.' And having said this, William Trefalden walked coolly away, without vouchsafing so much as a glance to a couple of dilighted boys who stood watching the performance from the opposite side of the street. As for AbelKeckwitch,he recovered his breath aud his equilibrium as well as he could, though the former was a matter of time, and Caused him to sit down, ignominiously, on the nearest door-step. When, at length, he was in a condition to retrace his steps, he rose, shook his fat fist in a passion of rage, and indulged in a volley of curses, not loud but deep. ' I'll be even with you,' Mr Trefalden, if I die for it! You've something to hide, but you shan't hide it from me. I'll know where you live, aud what you do with your money. I'll find out the secret of your life before I've done with you, and then let us see which will be master!'

CHAPTER IT. THE CHATEAU ROTZDETtG. Amid the many hundred miles which it traverses from its source in the glacier-land to its disperison among the border flats of the Zuyder Zee, the great Rhine river flows through no district so full of strange interest, so wild, so primitive, so -untrodden, as that deep and lonely valley that lies between Chur and Thusis in the Canton Grisons. The passing traveller hastening on to the Splugen, the wandering artist eager for Italy, alike hurry past with scarce a glance or a thought for the grey peaks above, or the stony river-bed below, the beateu highway. They litble guess what green delicious valleys, what winding ravines, what lagend-hauntcd ruins, and fragrant uplands jewelled with

Alp-roscs and purple gentian-blossoms, lio all unsought among tho slopes and passes of the mountains round about. Still less do they dream that to some of those crumbling towers from which the very ivy has long since withered away, there cling traditions many centuries older thaii Christ; or that in yonder scattered chalets, some of which cluster like swallow's nests on shelves of granite six or eight hundred feet above the level of tho valley, there is yet spoken a language unknown to the rest of Europe. Only the historian and archaeologist care to remember how there lie iaibedded in that tongue the last fragments of a forgotten language ; ana how in the veins of the simple mountaineers who speak it, there yet linger some drops of the blood of a lost, a mighty, and a mysterious people. Thus it happened that William Trefalden, who was neither an archaeologist nor an historian, but only a brilliant, unscrupulous man of the world, every fibre of whose active brain was busy just then with a thousand projects, neither knew, nor cared to know, any of these things, but took his way up the valley of Doinleschg without bestowing a thought upon its people or traditions.

It was about five o'clock in tho afternoon of the fourth, day from that on which he left London. He had been on the road two nights out of the three; and yet his eye looked none tho less bright, and his cheek none the paler. As he strode along in the deep shade, glancing up from time to time at the sunny heights above his head, his step grew freer, and his bearing more assured than usual. There was not soil of travel on his garments. The shabby office coat so inseparably associated with the wearer in the minds of his clerks, was discarded for a suit of fashionable cut and indefinite hue, such as the British tourist delighteth to honour. His gloves and linen were faultless. Even his boots, although he was on foot, were almost free from dust. He looked, in short so well dressed, and so unlike his daily self, that it may be doubted whether even Mr Abel Keekwitch would have recognised his employer at the first glance, if that astute head-clerk could by any possibility have met him on the way. Absorbed in thought as he was, however, Mr Trefalden paused every now and tnen to reconnoitre the principal features of the valley, and make certain of his landmarks. The village from which he had started was already left two miles behind; and, save a ruined watch-tower on a pedestal of rock some eighty feet above the leval of the road, there was no accessible building in sight. The Hinter Reinc, with its grey waters still dull from the glacier, ran brawling past him all the way. There were pine forests climbing up the spurs of the mountains; and flocks of brown goats, with little tinkling bells abaut their necks, browsing over the green slopes lower down. Far above the sound of these little bells, uplifted, as it were, upon gigantic precipices of bare granite, rose, terrace beyond terrace, a whole upper world of rich pasture lands, cultivated fields, mossy orchards, and tiny hamlets, which, seen from the valley, looked like carved toys scattered over the velvet sword. Higher still, came barren plateaus, groups of stunted firs, and rugged crags among which the unmelted snow lay in broad, irregular patches, while far away to the right, where another valley seemed to open westward, rose a mountain loftier than all the rest, from the summit of which a vast glacier hung over in icy folds that glittered to the sun, like sculp tured drapery depending from the shoulder of some colossal statue.

But AVilliam Trefalden had no eyes for this grand scene. To him, at that moment, the mountains were but signposts, and the sun a lamp to light him on his way. He was seeking for a certain roadside shrine behind which, he had been told, he should find a path leading to the Chateau Rotzberg. He knew that he had not yet passed the shrine, and that by this time ho must bo near it. Presently a chapel-bell chimed from the heights, clear, and sweet, and very distant. Pie paused to glance at his watch, and then pressed forward more rapidly. It was already a quarter to five, and he was anxious to reach his destination before the afternoon should grow much later. There was an abrupt carve in the road a few yards further on. He had been looking forward to this point for some minutes, and felt so sure that it must bring him in sight of the path, that when it actually did so, he struck up at once through the scattered pines that fringed the waste ground to the left l of the road, and trod the beaten track ■as confidently as if he were familiar with every foot of the way.

As he went on, the sound of the hurrying river died away, and tho scattered pines became a thick plantation, fragrant and dusky. Then the ground grew hilly, and was broken up here and there by mossy boulders; and then come open daylight again, and a space of smooth sword, and a steep pathway leading up to another belt of pines. This second plantation was so precipitous that tho path had in some places been laid down with blocks of rough stone and short lengths of pine trunks, so as to form a kind of primitive staircase up the mountainside. The ascent, however, was short, though steep, and Mr Trefalden had not been climbing it many minutes before he saw a bright shaft of sunlight piercing the fringed boughs some few yards in advance. Then the moss became suddenly golden beneath his feet, and he found himself on the verge of an open plateau, with the valley lying in d<eep shade some four hundred feet below, and the warm sun glowing on his face. There ran the steel-grey river, edding but inaudible; there opened the broad Rheinthol, leading away mile after mile into the dim distance, with glimpses of white Alps on the horison ; while close by, within fifty yards of the spot on which he was standing, rose the ivied walls of the Chateau Eotzberg. TO BE CONTINUED.