The Monctons | Page 2

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