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THE MONCTONS:
A NOVEL.
BY
SUSANNA MOODIE,
AUTHOR OF
"ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH," "FLORA LINDSAY,"
"MATRIMONIAL SPECULATIONS," &c.
What--dost thou think I'll bend to thee?
The free in soul are ever free:
Nor force, nor poverty can bind
The subtle will--the thinking mind.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1856.
LONDON:
Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.
TO JOHN LOVELL, ESQ., OF MONTREAL, WHO WAS ONE OF THE FIRST AND MOST
SUCCESSFUL PIONEERS IN ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL LITERATURE IN THE
CANADIAN COLONIES, THIS WORK, WHICH OWES ITS EXISTENCE TO HIS GENEROUS
CARE, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY HIS GRATEFUL AND OBLIGED FRIEND,
SUSANNA MOODIE.
DECEMBER, 1855.
Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents is not contained in the book
but has been created for the convenience of the reader of this etext.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. MY GRANDFATHER AND HIS SONS.
II. MY MOTHER'S FUNERAL.
III. MY AUNT REBECCA.
IV. THE TUTOR.
V. A CHANGE IN MY PROSPECTS.
VI. THE SORROWS OF DEPENDENCE.
VII. GEORGE HARRISON.
VIII. UNGRATIFIED CURIOSITY.
IX. A PORTRAIT.
X. DREAMS.
XI. MY FIRST LOVE.
XII. I FORFEIT MY INDEPENDENCE.
XIII. A VISIT FROM THE GREAT MAN OF THE FAMILY.
XIV. LOVE AND HATRED.
XV. GEORGE HARRISON AND HIS HISTORY.
XVI. GEORGE HARRISON CONTINUES HIS HISTORY.
XVII. HARRISON FINDS A FRIEND IN NEED.
XVIII. THE MEETING.
THE MONCTONS.
CHAPTER I.
MY GRANDFATHER AND HIS SONS.
There was a time--a good old time--when men of rank and fortune were
not ashamed of their poor relations; affording the protection of their
name and influence to the lower shoots of the great family tree, which,
springing from the same root, expected to derive support and
nourishment from the main stem.
That time is well-nigh gone for ever. Kindred love and hospitality have
decreased with the increase of modern luxury and exclusiveness, and the
sacred ties of consanguinity are now regarded with indifference; or if
recognized, it is only with those who move in the same charmed circle,
and who make a respectable appearance in the world: then, and then
only, are their names pronounced with reverence, and their relationship
considered an honor.
It is amusing to watch from a distance, the eagerness with which some
people assert their claims to relationship with wealthy and titled
families, and the intrigue and manoeuvring it calls forth in these
fortunate individuals, in order to disclaim the boasted connexion.
It was my fate for many years to eat the bitter bread of dependence,
as one of those despised and insulted domestic annoyances--_A Poor
Relation_.
My grandfather, Geoffrey Moncton, whose name I bear, was the youngest
son of a wealthy Yorkshire Baronet, whose hopes and affections entirely
centered in his first-born. What became of the junior scions of the
family-tree was to him a matter of secondary consideration. My
grandfather, however, had to be provided for in a manner becoming the
son of a gentleman, and on his leaving college, Sir Robert offered to
purchase him a commission in the army.
My grandfather was a lad of peaceable habits, and had a mortal
antipathy to fighting. He refused point blank to be a soldier. The Navy
offered the same cause for objection, strengthened by a natural
aversion to the water, which made him decline going to sea.
What was to be done with the incorrigible youth? Sir Robert flew into
a passion--called him a coward--a disgrace to the name of Moncton.
My grandfather, who was a philosopher in his way, pleaded guilty to the
first charge. From his cradle he had carefully avoided scenes of strife
and violence, and had been a quiet, industrious boy at school, a sober
plodding student at college, minding his own business, and troubling
himself very little with the affairs of others. The sight of blood made
him sick; he hated the smell of gunpowder, and would make any sacrifice
of time and trouble rather than come to blows. He now listened to the
long catalogue of his demerits, which his angry progenitor poured forth
against him, with such stoical indifference, that it nearly drew upon
him the corporeal punishment which at all times he so much dreaded.
Sir Robert at length named the Church, as the profession best suited to
a young man of his peaceable disposition, and flew into a fresh
paroxysm of rage, when the obstinate fellow positively refused to be a
parson.
"He had a horror," he said, "of making a mere profession of so sacred a
calling. Besides, he had an awkward impediment in his speech, and he
did not mean to stand up in a pulpit to expose his infirmity to the
ridicule of others."
Honour to my grandfather. He was not deficient in mental courage,
though Sir Robert, in the plenitude of his wisdom, had thought fit to
brand him as a coward.
The bar was next proposed for his consideration, but the lad replied
firmly, "I don't mean to be a lawyer."
"Your reasons, sir?" cried Sir Robert in a tone which seemed to forbid
a liberty of choice.
"I have neither talent nor inclination for the profession."
"And pray, sir, what have you talent or inclination for?"
"A merchant," returned Geoffrey calmly and decidedly, without appearing
to notice his aristocratic sire's look of withering contempt. "I have
no wish to be a poor gentleman. Place me in my Uncle Drury's
counting-house, and I will work hard and become an independent man."
Now this Uncle Drury was brother to the late Lady Moncton, who had been
married by the worthy Baronet for her wealth. He was one of Sir
Robert's horrors--one of those rich, vulgar connections which are not
so easily shaken off, and whose identity is with great difficulty
denied to the world. Sir Robert vowed, that if the perverse lad
persisted in his grovelling choice, though he had but two sons, he
would discard him altogether.
Obstinacy is a family failing of the Monctons. My grandfather, wisely,
or unwisely, as circumstances should afterwards determine, remained
firm to his purpose. Sir Robert realized his threat. The father and son
parted in anger, and from that hour, the latter was looked upon as an
alien to the old family stock; which he was considered to have
disgraced.
Geoffrey, however, succeeded in carrying out his great life object. He
toiled on with indefatigable industry, and soon became rich. He had
singular talents for acquiring wealth, and they were not suffered to
remain idle. The few pounds with which he commenced his mercantile
career, soon multiplied into thousands, and tens of thousands; and
there is no knowing what an immense fortune he might have realized, had
not death cut short his speculations at an early period of his life.
He had married uncle Drury's only daughter, a few years after he became
partner in the firm, by whom he had two sons, Edward and Robert, to
both of whom he bequeathed an excellent property.
Edward, the eldest, my father, had been educated to fill the mercantile
situation, now vacant by its proprietor's death, which was an ample
fortune in itself, if conducted with prudence and regularity.
Robert had been early placed in the office of a lawyer of eminence, and
was considered a youth of great talents and promise. Their mother had
been dead for some years, and of her little is known in the annals of
the family. When speculating upon the subject, I have imagined her to
have been a plain, quiet, matter-of-fact body, who never did or said
anything worth recording.
When a man's position in life is marked out for him by others, and he
is left no voice in the matter, in nine cases out of ten, he is totally
unfitted by nature and inclination for the post he is called to fill.
So it was with my father, Edward Moncton. A person less adapted to fill
an important place in the mercantile world, could scarcely have been
found. He had a genius for spending, not for making money; and was so
easy and credulous that any artful villain might dupe him out of it.
Had he been heir to the title and the old family estates, he would have
made a first rate country gentleman; for he possessed a fine manly
person, was frank and generous, and excelled in all athletic sports.
My Uncle Robert was the very reverse of my father--stern, shrewd, and
secretive; no one could see more of his mind than he was willing to
show; and, like my grandfather, he had a great love for money, and a
natural talent for acquiring it. An old servant of my grandfather's,
Nicholas Banks, used jocosely to say of him: "Had Master Robert been
born a beggar, he would have converted his ragged wrap-rascal into a
velvet gown. The art of making money was born in him."
Uncle Robert was very successful in his profession; and such is the
respect that men of common minds pay to wealth for its own sake, that
my uncle was as much courted by persons of his class, as if he had
been Lord Chancellor of England. He was called the _honest lawyer_:
wherefore, I never could determine, except that he was the _rich_
lawyer; and people could not imagine that the envied possessor of five
thousand per annum, could have any inducement to play the rogue, or
cheat his clients. The dependent slave who was chained all day to the
desk, in Robert Moncton's office, knew him to be a dishonest man; but
his practice daily increased, and his reputation and fortune increased
in proportion.
The habits and dispositions of these brothers were so different, so
utterly opposed to each other, that it was difficult to reconcile the
mind to the fact that they were so closely related.
My uncle had a subtle knowledge of character, which was rendered more
acute by his long acquaintance with the world; and he did not always
turn it to a righteous account. My father was a babe in these
matters--a cunning child might deceive him. While my uncle had a knack
of saving without appearing parsimonious, my father had an unfortunate
habit of frittering his money away upon trifles. You would have
imagined that the one had discovered the secret of the philosopher's
stone; and the other had ruined himself in endeavouring to find it out.
The one was economical from choice, the other extravagant from the mere
love of spending. My uncle married a rich merchant's daughter, for her
money. My father ran off with a poor curate's penniless girl, for love.
My father neglected his business and became poor. In the hope of
redeeming his fortune he frequented the turf and the gambling-table;
and died broken-hearted and insolvent in the prime of manhood; leaving
his widow and her orphan boy to the protection and guardianship of the
brother, who had drudged all his life to become a millionaire.
My dear mother only survived her handsome, reckless husband six short
months; and, bereaved of both my natural protectors, I was doomed at
the early age of eight years to drink the bitter cup of poverty and
dependence to its very dregs.