CHAPTER III

There are certain persons who are born heralds and genealogists; there are many more to whom these useful gifts have been denied.  With apologies to both classes, to the one for sins of omission, to the other in the reverse sense, I find that an excerpt from the Talbot-Lowry pedigree must be inflicted upon them.

With all brevity, let it be stated that Dick Talbot-Lowry possessed a father, General John Richard, and General John Richard had an only sister, Caroline.  Caroline, fair and handsome, like all her family, was “married off,” as was the custom of her period, at the age of seventeen, to elderly Anthony Coppinger, chiefly for the reason that he was the owner of Coppinger’s Court, with a very comfortable rent-roll, and a large demesne, that marched, as to its eastern boundaries, with that of Mount Music, and was, as it happened, divided from it by no more than the Ownashee, that mountain river of which mention has been made.  It was, therefore, exceedingly advisable that the existing friendly relations should be cemented, as far as was practicable, and the fair and handsome Caroline was an obvious and suitable adhesive.  To Anthony and Caroline, two children were born; Frederica, of whom more hereafter, and Thomas.  By those who lay claim to genealogic skill, it will now be apparent that these were the first cousins of Dick Talbot-Lowry.  Thomas went into the Indian Army, and in India met and married a very charming young lady, Theresa Quinton, a member of an ancient Catholic family in the North of England, and an ardent daughter of her Church.  In India, a son was born to them, and Colonel Tom, who adored his wife, remarking that these things were out of his line, made no objection to her bringing up the son, St. Lawrence Anthony, in her own religion, and hoped that the matter would end there.  Mrs. Coppinger, however, remembering St. Paul’s injunctions to believing wives and unbelieving husbands, neither stopped nor stayed her prayers and exhortations, until, just before the birth of a second child, she had succeeded in inducing Tom Coppinger—­(just “to please her, and for the sake of a quiet life,” as he wrote, apologetically, to his relations and friends, far away in Ireland) to join her Communion.  She then died, and her baby followed her.  Colonel Tom, a very sad and lonely man, came to England and visited St. Lawrence Anthony at the school selected for him by his mother; then he returned to his regiment in India, and was killed, within a year of his wife’s death, in a Frontier expedition.  He left Larry in the joint guardianship of his sister, Frederica, and his first cousin, Dick Talbot-Lowry, with the request that the former would live with the boy at Coppinger’s Court, and that the latter would look after the property until the boy came of age and could do so himself; he also mentioned that he wished his son’s education to continue on the lines laid down by his “beloved wife, Theresa.”