HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 391, 31 October 1868, Page 3

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BT THE AUTHOR OF " BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTEB ir. A> T 2fO DOttrei 18G0

He rose, and went to the great safe beside the fireplace. His hand trembled so that he could scarcely fit the key to the lock. He threw back one of tie heavy iron-panelled doors, and brought out a folded parchment with the words ' Deed of Mortgagee between Gercase Leopold Wi/nncliffe, Earl of Castlctowers, and Oliver Behrens, JEsqr., of Brea-sfreet, London,' written upon the outer side. Opening this document upon the desk, he resumed his seat, and read it carefully through from beginning to end. As he did so the trouble deepened and deepened on his face, and his cheek grew still more deathly. When he came to the signatures at the end, he pushed it from him with a bitter sigh. 'Not a flaw in it!' he groaned. ' !No pretext for putting off the evil day for even a week beyond the time! What a fool I was to think I could ever replace it! And yet what could Ido ? I wanted it. If it were to do again to-morrow, I should do it. Yes, by Heaven! I should, be the consequences what they might.' He paused, rose again, and replaced the mortgage deed in the safe. ' 'lf I only dared to burn it!' said he, with a lingering glance at the fire. 'Or if '

He took a letter from the table, and stood looking for some moments at the signature. 'Oliver Behrens!' he mused. ' A Bold hand, with something of the German character in that little twist at the top of the O, easy to imitate, but then the witnesses No, no, impossible! Better expatriation than such a risk as that. If the worst comes to the worst, there's always America.'

And with this he sank down into his chair again, rested his chin upon his open palms, and fell into a deep and silent traiu of thought. CIIAPTER 111. EESOIiTEB. As William Trefalden sat in his little dismal private room, wearily thinking, the clouds in the sky parted towards the west, and the last gleam of daylight fell upon his face. Such a pale eager face as it was, too, with a kind of strange beauty in it that no merely vulgar eye would have seen at all. To the majority of persons, "William Trefalden was simply a gentlemanly ' clever-looking' man. Attracted by the upright wall of forehead which literally overbalanced the prod-

or!ions of his face, they scarcely cbf»|ry;ed the delicacy of his other features. The clear pallor of hia complexion, the subtile moulding of hia mouth and chin, were altogether disregarded by those superficial observers. Even his eyes, large, brown, luminous as they were, lost much of their splendour beneath that superincumbent weight of the brow. His age was thirty-eight; but he looked older. Hia ha,r was thiek and dark, and sprinkled lightly here and there wibh silver, though slender, he was particularly well ■ made—so well made, that i* seemed impossible to him to move ungracefully. His hands were white and supple ; his voice low ; hia manner grave and polished. A very keen and practised eye might, perhaps, have detected a singular sub-current of excitability beneath that gravity and polish—a nervous excitability which it had been the business of William Trefalden's whole life to conquer and conceal, and which none of those around him were Lavaters enough to discover. The ice' of a studied reserve had effectually crusted over that fire. His own clerks, who saw' him daily for three hundred and thirteen dreary days in every dreary year, had no more notion of their employer's inner life than the veriest strangers who brushed past him along °the narrow footpath of Chancery-lane. They saw him only as others saw him. They thought of him only as others thought of him. They knew that he had a profound and extensive knowledge of his profession, an iron will, and an inexhaustible reserve of energy. They lmew that he would sit chained to his desk for twelve and fourteen hours at a time when there was urgent business to be done. They knew "that he wore a shabby coat, lunched every day on a couple of dry biscuits, made no friends, accepted no invitations, and kept his private address a dead secret, even from his head clerk. To them he was a grave, plodding, careful, clever man, somewhat parsimonious as to his expenditure, provokingly reticent as to his private habits, and evidently bent on the accumulation of riches. They were about as correct in their conclusions, as the conclave of cardinals which elected Pope Sextusthe Fifth for no other merits than his supposed age and infirmities. Lost in anxious thought, William Trefalden sat at his desk, in the same attitude, till dusk came on, and the lamps were lighted in the thoroughfare below. Once or twice he sighgd, or stirred uneasily; but his eyes never wandered from their fixed stare, and his head was never lifted from his hands. At length he seemed to come to a sudden resolution. He rose, rang the bell, crumpled up the memorandum which.he had written according to Mr Behrens' instructions, and flung it into the fire. The door opened, and a red-headed clerk made his appearance. ' Let my otEce lamp be brought,' said Mr Trefalden, ' and ask Mr Keckwitch to step this way.' The clerk vanished, and was succeeded by Mr Keck witch, who came in with the lighted lamp in his hand. ' Put the shade over it, Keckwitch,' exclaimed Mr Trefalden, impatiently, as the glare fell full upon his face. ' It's enough to blind one !' The head clerk obeyed slowly, looking at his employer all the while from beneath his eyelashes. ' Tou sent for me, sir ?' he asked huskily. He was a short, fat, pallid man. with no more neck than a Schiedam bottle. His eyes were small and almost colourless. His ears had held so many generations of pens that they stood out from his head like the handles of a classic vase ; and his voice was always husky. ' Tes. Do you know where to lav your hand upon that old copy of my great-grandfather's will?'

'Jacob Trefalden of Basinghall street, seventeen hundred and sixty F* Mr Trefaidea nodded. The head clerk took the subject into placid consideration, and drummed thoughtfully with his fat fingers upon the most prominent portion of his waistcoat.

* "Welljsir,"' he admitted, after a brief pause, ' I won't say that I may not be able to find it.'

'Do so, if you please. "Who is in the office ?'

' Only Mr G-orkin.' 'Desire Gorkin to run out and fetch me a Continental Bradsbaw.' Mr Keckwitch retired ; despatched tho red-headed clerk; took down a dusty deed-box from a still dustier comer cupboard;,brought forth the old yellow parchment for which his employer had just inquired, and slipped the same within tho lid of his desk. Having done this, he took an armful of mouldy deeds from another shelf of the same cupboard, and littered

them all about the desk and floorJust as he had completed these ar* rangements, Gorkin returned, breath* lesß, with the volume in his hand, and Mr Keckwitch took it in.

' And the copy ?' said Mr Trefalden, without lifting his eyes from an old boflk of maps over which he was bend'lam looking for it, sir,' replied the head clerk.

' Very good,' • Gorkin may go, I suppose, sir ? It's more than half-past five.' ' Of course and vou too, when you have found the deed.'

Mr Keck witch retired ngain, released the grateful Gorkin, placed himself at his desk, and proceeded with much deliberation to read the will.

' "What's at the bottom ef it ? muttered he, presently, as he paused with one fat linger on the opening sentence. ' what'B wrong ? Something. I heard it in his voice. I saw it in his face. And he know I should see it, too, when he called out about the shade. What is it? What's he peering into those maps about ? Why does he want this copy ? He never asked for it before. There ain't a farthing coming to him, 1 know. I've read it before. But I'll read it again, for all that. A man can never know too much of his employer's private affairs. Not much chance of learning a great deal of his, either. Confounded private he keeps 'em." He read on a little further, and then paused again. 'Why did he send for that Continental Bradshaw?' he questioned to himself. ' Why can I go, too, when there's plenty to be done here, and he knows it ? He wants me gone —why? Where's he goin' himself? What's he up to ? Abel Keckwitch, Abel Keckwitch, my best of friends, keep your right eye open!' And with this apostrophe he returned to the deed and proceeded with it sedulously. ' Well, Keckwitch,' cried Mr Trefalden, from the inner room, ' have you found the copy ?' 1 Not yet, sir,' replied that trusty fellow, who was then rather more than half way through it. ' But I've turned out a boxful of old parchments, ai»d I think I shall be sure '

' Enough, Look closely for it, and bring it as soon as it turns up.' 'lt will turn up,' murmured Mr Keckwitcb, as soon as I have finished St.'

And eo it did, about five minutes after, when Mr Keckwitch made his -appearance with ib at his master's door.

' Pound ? That's right!' exclaimed the lawyer, putting out his hand eagerly.

' I won't be sure, sir, till you've looked at it,' replied the head clerk, with becoming modesty. Mr Trefalden's fingers closed on the document, hut his eyes' flashed keenly into the lustreless orbs of Mr Abel Keckwitch, and rested there a moment before they reverted to the en•dorsement.

4 Humph!' said he, in a slightly altererl tone. ' Tes—it's quite right thank you. Good night.' ' Good night, sir.'

Mr Trefalden looked after him su ■ piciously, and continued to do so. even when the door had been closed between them.

' The man's false,' said he. ' None Dut spies have so little curiosity. I •shouldn't wonder if he's read every .line.'

Then he rose, locked the door, .'trimmed the lamp, dismissed the subject from his thoughts, and began to read the will. As he read his brow •darkened, and his lip grew stern. Presently he dashed the deed aside, and jotted down row after row of cyphers on a piece of blotting-paper. Then he went back to the deed, and back again to the cyphers, and every moment the frown settler deeper and deeper on his brow. Such a complex "train of hopes and doubts, speculations and calculations as were traversing the mazes of that busy brain ! Sometimes he pondered in silence. Sometimes he muttered through his teethbut so inaudibly, that had there even been a listener at the door (as perhaps there was), that listenerwould not have been a syllable the wiser. TO BE CONTINUED.