not yet passed the shrine, and that by this time
he must be near it. Presently a chapel-bell
chimed from the heights, clear, and sweet, and
very distant. He 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 curve 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 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 the 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 came open
daylight again, and a space of smooth sward, and
a steep pathway leading up to another belt of
pines. This second plantation was so
precipitous that the 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 mountain-side. The
ascent, however, was short, though steep, and
Mr. Trefalden had not been climbing it for 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
deep shade some four hundred feet below, and
the warm sun glowing on his face. There ran
the steel-grey river, eddying but inaudible; there
opened the broad Rheinthal, leading away mile
after mile into the dim distance, with glimpses of
white Alps on the horizon; while close by, within
fifty yards of the spot on which he was standing,
rose the ivied walls of the Château Rotzberg.

This, then, was the home to which his great-
grandfather's eldest son had emigrated one
hundred years before this, the birthplace of the
heir-at-law! William Trefalden smiled somewhat
bitterly as he paused and looked upon it.

It was a thorough Swiss mediaeval dwelling,
utterly irregular, and consisting apparently of a
cluster of some five or six square turrets, no two
of which were of the same size or height. They
were surmounted alike by steep slated roofs and
grotesque weathercocks; and the largest, which
had been suffered to fall to ruin, was green with
ivy from top to bottom. The rest of the château
gave signs of only partial habitation. Many of
the narrow windows were boarded up, while
others showed a scrap of chintz on the inner side,
or a flower-pot on the sill. A low wall, enclosing
a small court-yard, lay to the south of the
building, and was approached by a quaint old
gateway supporting a sculptured scutcheon, close
above which a stork had built his nest.
None of these details escaped the practised eye
of William Trefalden. He saw all in a moment
—poverty, picturesqueness, and neglect. As he
crossed the open sward, and came in sight of a
steep road winding up from the valley on the
other side, he remarked that there were no tracks
of wheels upon it. Passing under the gateway,
he observed how the heraldic bearings were
effaced upon the shield, and how those fractures
were such as could only have been dealt by the
hand of man. Not even the grass that had sprung
up amid the paving in the court-yard, nor the
mossy penthouse over the well, nor the empty
kennel in the corner, remained unnoticed as he
went up to the door of the château.

It was standing partly open—a massy oaken
portal, studded with iron stanchions, and
protected only by a heavy latch. William Trefalden
looked round for a bell, but there was none. Then
he knocked with his clenched hand, but no one
came. He called aloud, but no one answered.
At last he went in.

The door opened into a stone hall of irregular
shape, with a cavernous fireplace at one end, and
a large modern window at the other. The ceiling
was low, and the rafters were black with smoke.
An old carved press, a screen, some chairs and
settles of antique form, a great oak table on
which lay a newspaper and a pair of clumsy silver
spectacles, a curious Swiss clock with a toy
skeleton standing in a little sentry-box just over
the dial, a spinning-wheel and a linen-press, were
all the furniture that it contained. A couple of
heavy Tyrolean rifles, with curved stocks to fit to
the shoulder, were standing behind the door, and
an old sabre, a pair of antlers, and a yellow parchment
in a black frame, hung over the mantelpiece.
A second door, also partly open, stood nearly
opposite the first, and led into a garden.

Having surveyed this modest interior from the
threshold, and found himself alone there, Mr.
Trefalden crossed over to the fireplace and
examined the parchment at his leisure. It was
Captain Jacob's commission, signed and sealed
by His Most Gracious Majesty King George the
Second, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and
forty-eight. Turning from this to the newspaper
on the table, he saw that it was printed in some
language with which he was not acquainted—a
language that was neither French, nor Italian,
nor Spanish, but which seemed to bear a vague
resemblance to all three. It was entitled
"Amity del Pievel." Having lingered over this
journal with some curiosity, he laid it down
again, and passed out through the second door
into the garden.

Here, at least, he had expected to find some
one belonging to the place; but it was a mere
kitchen garden, and contained nothing higher in
the scale of creation than cabbages and potatoes,
gooseberry-bushes, and beds of early salad. Mr.
Trefalden began to ask himself whether his Swiss
kindred had deserted the Château Rotzberg
altogether.

Strolling slowly along a side-path sheltered by
a high privet hedge, and glancing back every now