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BOOK I: THE WILL OF ROGER MELTON
The Reading of the Will of Roger Melton and all that Followed
Record er Halbard Melton, law-student of the InnerTemple, eldest son of Ernest Halbard Melton, eldest son of Ernest Melton,elder brother of the said Roger Melton and his next of kin
I consider it at least useful--perhaps necessary--to have a co to the Will of er Melton
To which end let me put down the various members of his family, andexplain some of their occupations and idiosyncrasies My father, ErnestHalbard Melton, was the only son of Ernest Melton, eldest son of SirGeoffrey Halbard Melton of Humcroft, in the shire of Salop, a Justice ofthe Peace, and at one tirandfather, Sir Geoffrey,had inherited a ser Melton In his tireat-grandfatherchanged the spelling to the later foriven to sentiment, and feared lest he should in the public eye beconfused with others belonging to the family of a Radical person calledMilton, rote poetry and was some sort of official in the time ofCromwell, whilst we are Conservatives The sa of the fao into business So he beca, a tanner andleather-dresser He utilized for the purpose the ponds and streams, andalso the oak-woods on his estate--Torraby in Suffolk He made a finebusiness, and accumulated a considerable fortune, with a part of which hepurchased the Shropshire estate, which he entailed, and to which I amtherefore heir-apparent
Sir Geoffrey had, in addition toborn twenty years after her youngest brotherThese sons were: Geoffrey, who died without issue, having been killed inthe Indian Mutiny at Meerut in 1857, at which he took up a sword, thougha civilian, to fight for his life; Roger (to whom I shall referpresently); and John--the latter, like Geoffrey, dying unmarried Out ofSir Geoffrey's farandfather, who had three children, two of who only er and PatiencePatience, as born in 1858, er--which was the usual way of pronouncing the naer--restored by later generations to thestill older form He was a reckless, dare-devil sort of fellow, then aCaptain in the Lancers, a man not without the quality of bravery--he wonthe Victoria Cross at the Battle of AnBut I fear he lacked the seriousness and steadfast strenuous purposewhich my father always says h nearly all of his patrirand-aunt's little fortune, his days, had he lived,must have ended in comparative poverty Comparative, not actual; for theMeltons, who are persons of considerable pride, would not have tolerateda poverty-stricken branch of the family We don't think much of thatlot--any of us
Fortunately, reat-aunt Patience had only one child, and the preer (as I prefer to call the na rande an alliance for her Shewas, I am told, always a stiff, uppish person, ould not yieldherself to the wisdom of her superiors Her own child was a son, whoseemed to take his character rather from his father's fa stone, always in scrapes at school,and alanting to do ridiculous things My father, as Head of theHouse 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 todesist Indeed, I have heard my father say that he sometimes threatenedhis life A desperate character he was, and almost devoid of reverenceNo one, not even ood influence, of course,I mean--over him, except his mother, as of overness--aunt, he called her Theway of it was this: Captain St Leger had a younger brother, who irl when they were both very youngThey had nothing to live on except what the reckless Lancer gave the himself, and she was "bare"--which is, Iunderstand, the indelicate Scottish way of expressing lack of fortuneShe was, however, I understand, of an old and soh broken in fortune--to use an expression which, however, couldhardly be used precisely in regard to a family or a person who never hadfortune to be broken in! It was so far well that the MacKelpies--thatwas the htingwas concerned It would have been too hu to have allied to ourfamily, even on the distaff side, a fa alone does not h they think they are We have had in our faht because they_wanted_ to Mrs St Leger had a sister; fortunately there were onlythose two children in the family, or else they would all have had to besupported by the money of my family
Mr St Leger, as only a subaltern, was killed at Maiwand; and hisas left a beggar Fortunately, however, she died--her sisterspread a story that it was frorief--before the childwhich she expected was born This all happened when my cousin--or,rather, my father's cousin, my first-cousin-once-removed, to beaccurate--was still a very small child His mother then sent for MissMacKelpie, her brother-in-law's sister-in-law, to coars can't be choosers; and she helped to bring upyoung St Leger
I re a witty remarkabout her I was quite a boy then, not more than thirteen; but ourfa of life, and father wastelling er fa of the don't care for poor relations--and was explaining where MissMacKelpie caoverness, forMrs 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 tohave been called Miss MacSkelpie!"
When my first-cousin-once-removed, Rupert, elve years old, hismother died, and he was in the dolefuls about it forwith hio into the poor-house when they can keep out! Myfather, being Head of the Faer, brother of the testator, another The third wasGeneral MacKelpie, a poverty-stricken Scotch laird who had a lot ofvalueless land at Crooave me a newten-pound note when I interrupted hier's i that he was inerror as to the land From what I had heard of MacKelpie's estate, itwas productive of one thing; when he asked ht, not long before, a lot of theo used to call "cut-throat"price When I re the the faave otten
"I did it so that I ht keep my hand on the bold General, in case heshould ever prove troublesome And if the worst should ever cos!" My father can seeas far as most men!
When my cousin--I shall call hiht seeht hereafter read it that Iwished to taunt Rupert St Leger with his so his real distance in kinship with er, wished to commit a certain idiotic act of financialfolly, he approachedat our estate,Humcroft, at an inconvenient time, without
per hadeven the decent courtesy to say he was co I was then a little chapof six years old, but I could not help noticing his mean appearance Hewas all dusty and dishevelled When my father saw him--I came into thestudy with him--he said in a horrified voice:
"Good God!" He was further shocked when the boy brusquely acknowledged,in reply to , that he had travelled third class Ofcourse, none of o second My father was really angry when he said he hadwalked up from the station
"A nice spectacle for my tenants and my tradesmen! To seelike a tramp on the roadto my estate! Why, my avenue is two miles and a perch! No wonder youare filthy and insolent!" Rupert--really, I cannot call hily impertinent to my father
"I walked, sir, because I had no money; but I assure you I did not meanto be insolent I simply came here because I wished to ask your adviceand assistance, not because you are an iavenue--as I know to my cost--but simply because you are one of mytrustees"
"_Your_ trustees, sirrah!" saidhim "Yourtrustees?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, quite quietly "I meant the trusteesof my dear mother's will"