about the second arrow, he told the truth, and
was ready to die for it."

"You are an enthusiast on the subject of
heroes," said Mr. Trefalden, jestingly.

The young man blushed again, more deeply
than before.

"I hate Ulysses," he said. "He was a
contemptible fellow; and I don't believe that Homer
wrote the Odyssey at all."

With this, he addressed some observation to
Kettli, who answered 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.
"It is a language—a genuine language; copious,
majestic, elegant, and more ancient by many
centuries than the Latin."

"You surprise me."

"Its modern name," continued the old man,
"is the Rhæto-Romansch. If you desire to
know its ancient name, I must refer you back to
a period earlier, perhaps, than even the foundation
of Alba Longa, and certainly long anterior
to Rome. 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,
I am much interested in what you tell me."

The pastor's face lighted up.

"I am glad of it," he said, eagerly. "I am
very glad of it. It is a subject to which I have
devoted the leisure of a long life."

"But you have not yet told me the ancient
name of this Romansch tongue?"

Saxon, who had been looking somewhat
uneasy during the last few minutes, was about to
speak; but his uncle interposed.

"No, no, my son," he said, eagerly, " these
are matters with which I am more conversant
than thou. Leave the explanation to me."

The young man bent forward, and whispered,
"Briefly, then, dearest father."

Mr. Trefalden's quick ear caught the almost
inaudible warning. It was his destiny to gain more
than 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 names, as the Galanda,
the Ringel, the Albula, and so forth; but they
have also a general and classified name. They
are the Rhætian 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 Stelvio, and beyond them the
plains of Lombardy. You probably know this
already; but it is important to my explanation
that you should have a correct idea of our
geography here in the Grisons."

Mr. Trefalden bowed, and begged him to
proceed. Saxon ate his supper in silence.

"Well," continued the pastor, "about two
thousand eight hundred years ago these Alps
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 God would seem to have
implanted in 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 degree
of civilisation. When I tell you that they had
attained to this eminence before the era of
Romulus; that they gave religion, language, and
arts to Rome 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
back at last to these same mountains from which
they had emigrated long centuries before; that
they erected some of those strongholds, the
imperishable ruins of which yet stand above our
passes; and that in this Rhæto-Romansch tongue
of the Grisons 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?"

Now it happened, somewhat unluckily, that
Mr. Trefalden had lately read, somewhere or
another, a review of somebody's book on this very
subject; so, when the old man paused, quite
warm and flushed with his own eloquence, he
found himself prepared with a reply.

"If," said he, "I had not taken an impression
—if, in short, I had not understood that the
Etruscans were originally a Lydian tribe—"

"You took that impression from Herodotus!"
interrupted the pastor.

"No; for the best of reasons. I never was
Grecian enough to do battle with Herodotus."

"From Tacitus, then?"

"Possibly from Tacitus."

"Yes, Tacitus supports that theory, but he is
wrong; so does Herodotus, and he is wrong; so
do Strabo, Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch,
Velleius Paterculus, Servius, and a host of
others, and they are all wrong—utterly wrong,
every one of them!"

"But where—"

"Livy supposes that the emigration was from
the plains to the mountains folly, mere folly!
Does not every example in history point to the
contrary? The dwellers in plains fly to the
mountains for refuge; but emigration flows as
naturally from the heights to the flats, as streams
flow down from the glaciers to the valleys.
Hellanicus of Lesbos would have us believe they
were Pelasgians. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
asserts that they were the aborigines of the
soil. Gorius makes them PhÅ“nician—Bonarota,
Egyptian—Maffei, Canaanite—Guarnacci . . ."