HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 409, 21 November 1868, Page 2

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY' THE AUTHOR OP " IiABBABA's HISTOBT."

CHAPTER V. MB. TREFALDEN AND HIS COUSINS. A giant shadow fell upon the grass] and young Saxon's six feetof substance stood between them and the sun. He held a dish in his hands and a bottle under his arm, and was followed by a stalwart pleasant woman, laden with plates and glasses. ' The evening is so -warm,' said he, that I thought our cousin would perfer to stay here ; so Kettli and I have brought the supper with us.' 'Nothing could please 'me better,' replied Mr Trefalden. 'By the way, Saxon, I must compliment 3-011 on your Greek. Theocritus is an old friend of mine'and you read him remarkably well.' The young man, who had just removed the book from the table, and was assisting to spread the cloth, blushed like a girl. 'He and Anacreon were my favourite poets,' added the lawyer ; but that was a long time ago. I fear I now remember very little of either.' ' I have not read Anacreon,' said Saxon ; ' but of all those I know, I love Homer best.' ' Ay, for the fighting,' suggested his uncle, with a smile. ' Why not, when it's such- grand fighting ?' ' Then you perfer the Iliad the Odyssey,' said Mr Trefalden. ' Now, for my part, I always took more pleasure in the adventures of Ulysses. The scenery is so various and romantic; the fiction so delightful.' ' I don't like Ulysses,' said Saxon bluntly. ' He's so crafty.' 'He is therefore all the truer to nature,' replied Mr Trefalden. 'AH Greeks are crafty; and Ulysses is the very type of his race.' ' I cannot forgive him on that plea. A hero must be better than his race, or he is no hero.' ' That is true, my son,'said the pastor. 'I allow that the Homeric heroes are not Bayards; but they are great men,' said Mr Trefalden* defending his position less for the sake of argument _ than for the opportunity of studying his cousin's opinions. ' Ulysses is not a great man,' replied Saxon, warmly • ' much less a hero.' Mr Trefalden smiled, and shook his head. ' Tou have all the world against you,, said he. ' The world lets itself be blinded by tradition,' answered Saxon." ' Can a man be a hero, and steal ? a hero, and tell lies ? a hero, and afraid to give his name ? Tell of Aatdorf was not one of that stamp, when Gressler questioned him about the second arrow, he told the truth, and was ready to die for it.' ' Tou are an enthusiast on the subject of heroes.' said Mr Trefalden jestingly. The young man blushed again, more fleeply than before. ' I hate Ulysses,' he said. 'He was a contemptible follow; and I don't believe that Homer wrote the Odyssey at all.' With this, he addressed some observations to Kettli, who adswered him, and departed. ' What a strange dialect!' said Mr Trefalden his attention diverted into another channel. ' Did I not see a newspaper printed in it, as I passed just now through the house ?' 'You did; but it is no dialect,' replied the pastor, as they took their places round the table. 'lt is a language—a genuine language ; conions, majestic, elegant, and more ancient by many centuries than the Latin.' 'You sui'prise me.' ' Its modern name,' continued the old man, 'is the llha?to-Eomaasch. If you desire to know the ancient name, I must refer you back to a period earlier, perhaps, that even the foundation of Alba Tonga, and certainly long anterior to Eome. But, cousin, you do not eat.' ' I have really no appetite,' pleaded Mr Trefalden, who found neither the goat's milk cheese nor the salad particularly to his taste. 'Besides, lam much interested in what you tell me.' The pastor's face lighted up.

lam glad of it,' ho paid, eagerly. ' 1 am very glad of it. It is a subject to which 1 have devoted the leisure of a long life.' ' But you have not yet told me tho ancient name of this Romnnsch tongue?' Saxon, wlio had been looking somewhat uneasy during the last fewminutes, was about to speak; when his uncle interposed. ' No, no, my son,' ho said, eagerly, ' these are matters with which I am more conversant than thou. Leave the xplanation to me.' The young man bent forward, and whispered, ' Briefly, then, dearest lather.' Mr Trefalden's quick ear caught the almost inaudible warning. It was his distiny to gain more thau one insight into character that evening. The pastor nodded, somewhat impatiently, and launched into what was evidently a favourite topic. ' Look round,' he said, at these mountains. They have their local name, as the Galanda, the Hinge], the Albula, and so forth; but they have also a general and classified name. They are the Bhsstian Alps. Among them lie numerous valleys, of which this, the Hinter-Rhein-Thal, .is the chief. Yonder lie the passes of the Splugen and the Steivio, and beyond them plains of Lomba2'dy. You probably know this already ; but it is important to my explanation tnat you should have a correct idea of our geography here iu the Grisons.' Mr Trcfalden bowed, and begged him to proceed. Saxon ate his supper in silence. ' "Well,' continued the pastor, ' about two thousand eight hundred years ago these Alp's were peopled by a hardy aboriginal race, speaking the same language, or the germs of the same language, which is spoken here to this day by their descendants. These aborigines followed the instincts which G-od would seem to have implanted iu the hearts of all mountain races. They wearied of their barren fastnesses. They poured down into the southern plains. They expelled the native Umbrians, and settled as conquerors in that part of Italy which lies north of Ancona and the Tiber. There they built cities, cultivated literature and the arts, and reached a high decree of civilisation. Tv r hen I tell you that they had attained to this eminence before the era of Romulus ; that they gave religion, language, and arts to Home herself; that according to the decreed fate of nations, they fell through their own luxury,and were enslaved in their turn ; that pursued by the Gaul or the Celt, they fled at last back to these same mountains from which they had emigrated long pen* turies before ; that they erected some of_ those strongholds, imperishable ruins of which stand above our passes ; and that in this Rhceto-llomansch tongue of the Orisons survive the last utterances of their lost poets and historians—when, cousin, I tell you all these things, you will, I think' have guessed already what the name of that ancient people must have been ?' TO BE COjS'TIST/eB.