the Wood Family, to which he belonged, had for many generations been
settled in Devonshire, farming their own land. When the eldest son
William, my father, came of age, he joined with his father to cut off the
entail, and the old acres were sold. Meanwhile members of other branches
had entered commercial life, and had therein prospered exceedingly. One
of them had become Lord Mayor of London, had vigorously supported the
unhappy Queen Caroline, had paid the debts of the Duke of Kent, in order
that that reputable individual might return to England with his Duchess,
so that the future heir to the throne might be born on English soil; he
had been rewarded with a baronetcy as a cheap method of paying his
services. Another, my father's first cousin once removed, a young
barrister, had successfully pleaded a suit in which was concerned the
huge fortune of a miserly relative, and had thus laid the foundations of
a great success; he won for himself a vice-chancellorship and a
knighthood, and then the Lord Chancellorship of England, with the barony
of Hatherley. A third, a brother of the last, Western Wood, was doing
good service in the House of Commons. A fourth, a cousin of the last two,
had thrown himself with such spirit and energy into mining work, that he
had accumulated a fortune. In fact all the scattered branches had made
their several ways in the world, save that elder one to which my father
belonged. That had vegetated on down in the country, and had grown poorer
while the others grew richer. My father's brothers had somewhat of a
fight for life. One has prospered and is comfortable and well-to-do. The
other led for years a rough and wandering life, and "came to grief"
generally. Some years ago I heard of him as a store-keeper in Portsmouth
dock-yard, occasionally boasting in feeble fashion that his cousin was
Lord Chancellor of England, and not many months since I heard from him in
South Africa, where he has secured some appointment in the Commissariat
Department, not, I fear, of a very lucrative character.