and dynasty.  He entered, therefore, without hesitation, into the resentful feeling of the relations who had the best title to dictate his conduct; and not perhaps the less willingly, when he remembered the tedium of his quarters, and the inferior figure which he had made among the officers of his regiment.  If he could have had any doubt upon the subject, it would have been decided by the following letter from his commanding-officer, which, as it is very short, shall be inserted verbatim:—­

’Sir,

’Having carried somewhat beyond the line of my duty an indulgence which even the lights of nature, and much more those of Christianity, direct towards errors which may arise from youth and inexperience, and that altogether without effect, I am reluctantly compelled, at the present crisis, to use the only remaining remedy which is in my power.  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.  Connecting it with the letters he had just received from his family, he could not but suppose that it was designed to make him feel, in his present situation, the same pressure of authority which had been exercised in his father’s case, and that the whole was a concerted scheme to depress and degrade every member of the Waverley family.

Without a pause, therefore, Edward wrote a few cold lines, thanking his lieutenant-colonel for past civilities, and expressing regret that he should have chosen to efface the remembrance of them, by assuming a different tone towards him.  The strain of his letter, as well as what he (Edward) conceived to be his duty, in the present crisis, called upon him to lay down his commission; and he therefore enclosed the formal resignation of a situation which subjected him to so unpleasant a correspondence, and requested Colonel Gardiner would have the goodness to forward it to the proper authorities.