So he became, whilst still young, a tanner and leather-dresser.

He utilized for the purpose the ponds and streams, and also the oak-woods on his estate--Torraby in Suffolk.

He made a fine business, and accumulated a considerable fortune, with a part of which he purchased the Shropshire estate, which he entailed, and to which I am therefore heir-apparent.
Sir Geoffrey had, in addition to my grandfather, three sons and a daughter, the latter being born twenty years after her youngest brother.
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.