You are,
therefore, hereby commanded to repair to ----, the headquarters 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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