You are
therefore, hereby commanded to repair to--, the head-quarters of the
regiment, within three days after the date of this letter. If you shall
fail to do so, I must report you to the War-Office as absent without
leave, and also take other steps, which will be disagreeable to you, as
well as to, Sir,
'Your obedient Servant,
'J. GARDINER, Lieut.-Col.
'Commanding the--Regt. Dragoons.'
Edward's blood boiled within him as he read this letter. He had been
accustomed from his very infancy to possess, in a great measure, the
disposal of his own time, and thus acquired habits which rendered the
rules of military discipline as unpleasing to him in this as they were
in some other respects. An idea that in his own case they would not be
enforced in a very rigid manner had also obtained full possession of his
mind, and had hitherto been sanctioned by the indulgent conduct of his
lieutenant-colonel. Neither had anything occurred, to his knowledge,
that should have induced his commanding-officer, without any other
warning than the hints we noticed at the end of the fourteenth chapter,
so suddenly to assume a harsh, and, as Edward deemed it, so insolent
a tone of dictatorial authority.
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