These sons were: Geoffrey, who died without issue, having been killed in
the Indian Mutiny at Meerut in 1857, at which he took up a sword, though
a civilian, to fight for his life; Roger (to whom I shall refer
presently); and John--the latter, like Geoffrey, dying unmarried. Out of
Sir Geoffrey's family of five, therefore, only three have to be
considered: My grandfather, who had three children, two of whom, a son
and a daughter, died young, leaving only my father, Roger and Patience. Patience, who was born in 1858, married an Irishman of the name of
Sellenger--which was the usual way of pronouncing the name of St. Leger,
or, as they spelled it, Sent Leger--restored by later generations to the
still older form. He was a reckless, dare-devil sort of fellow, then a
Captain in the Lancers, a man not without the quality of bravery--he won
the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Amoaful in the Ashantee Campaign. But I fear he lacked the seriousness and steadfast strenuous purpose
which my father always says marks the character of our own family. He
ran through nearly all of his patrimony--never a very large one; and had
it not been for my grand-aunt's little fortune, his days, had he lived,
must have ended in comparative poverty. Comparative, not actual; for the
Meltons, who are persons of considerable pride, would not have tolerated
a poverty-stricken branch of the family. We don't think much of that
lot--any of us. Fortunately, my great-aunt Patience had only one child, and the premature
decease of Captain St. Leger (as I prefer to call the name) did not allow
of the possibility of her having more. She did not marry again, though
my grandmother tried several times to arrange an alliance for her. She
was, I am told, always a stiff, uppish person, who would not yield
herself to the wisdom of her superiors. Her own child was a son, who
seemed to take his character rather from his father's family than from my
own. He was a wastrel and a rolling stone, always in scrapes at school,
and always wanting to do ridiculous things. My father, as Head of the
House and his own senior by eighteen years, tried often to admonish him;
but his perversity of spirit and his truculence were such that he had to
desist. Indeed, I have heard my father say that he sometimes threatened
his life. A desperate character he was, and almost devoid of reverence. No one, not even my father, had any influence--good influence, of course,
I mean--over him, except his mother, who was of my family; and also a
woman who lived with her--a sort of governess--aunt, he called her. The
way of it was this: Captain St. Leger had a younger brother, who made an
improvident marriage with a Scotch girl when they were both very young. They had nothing to live on except what the reckless Lancer gave them,
for he had next to nothing himself, and she was "bare"--which is, I
understand, the indelicate Scottish way of expressing lack of fortune. She was, however, I understand, of an old and somewhat good family,
though broken in fortune--to use an expression which, however, could
hardly be used precisely in regard to a family or a person who never had
fortune to be broken in! It was so far well that the MacKelpies--that
was the maiden name of Mrs. St. Leger--were reputable--so far as fighting
was concerned. It would have been too humiliating to have allied to our
family, even on the distaff side, a family both poor and of no account. Fighting alone does not make a family, I think. Soldiers are not
everything, though they think they are. We have had in our family men
who fought; but I never heard of any of them who fought because they
_wanted_ to. Mrs. St. Leger had a sister; fortunately there were only
those two children in the family, or else they would all have had to be
supported by the money of my family. Mr. St. Leger, who was only a subaltern, was killed at Maiwand; and his
wife was left a beggar. Fortunately, however, she died--her sister
spread a story that it was from the shock and grief--before the child
which she expected was born. This all happened when my cousin--or,
rather, my father's cousin, my first-cousin-once-removed, to be
accurate--was still a very small child. His mother then sent for Miss
MacKelpie, her brother-in-law's sister-in-law, to come and live with her,
which she did--beggars can't be choosers; and she helped to bring up
young St. Leger. I remember once my father giving me a sovereign for making a witty remark
about her. I was quite a boy then, not more than thirteen; but our
family were always clever from the very beginning of life, and father was
telling me about the St. Leger family. My family hadn't, of course, seen
anything of them since Captain St. Leger died--the circle to which we
belong don't care for poor relations--and was explaining where Miss
MacKelpie came in. She must have been a sort of nursery governess, for
Mrs. St. Leger once told him that she helped her to educate the child. "Then, father," I said, "if she helped to educate the child she ought to
have been called Miss MacSkelpie!" When my first-cousin-once-removed, Rupert, was twelve years old, his
mother died, and he was in the dolefuls about it for more than a year. Miss MacKelpie kept on living with him all the same. Catch her quitting! That sort don't go into the poor-house when they can keep out! My
father, being Head of the Family, was, of course, one of the trustees,
and his uncle Roger, brother of the testator, another. The third was
General MacKelpie, a poverty-stricken Scotch laird who had a lot of
valueless land at Croom, in Ross-shire. I remember father gave me a new
ten-pound note when I interrupted him whilst he was telling me of the
incident of young St. Leger's improvidence by remarking that he was in
error as to the land. From what I had heard of MacKelpie's estate, it
was productive of one thing; when he asked me "What?" I answered
"Mortgages!" Father, I knew, had bought, not long before, a lot of them
at what a college friend of mine from Chicago used to call "cut-throat"
price. When I remonstrated with my father for buying them at all, and so
injuring the family estate which I was to inherit, he gave me an answer,
the astuteness of which I have never forgotten. "I did it so that I might keep my hand on the bold General, in case he
should ever prove troublesome. And if the worst should ever come to the
worst, Croom is a good country for grouse and stags!" My father can see
as far as most men!