“Bellamy! where the d——l do you come from?—Very glad to see you, faith!” cried the colonel, going forward to shake hands with a very handsome man, who had just then entered the room. “Maria,” said Colonel Hauton, turning to his sister, “don’t you know Bellamy?—Bellamy,” repeated he, coming close to her, whilst the gentleman was paying his compliments to Lady Oldborough, “Captain Bellamy, with whom you used to waltz every night, you know, at—what’s the name of the woman’s?”
“I never waltzed with him but once—or twice, that I remember,” said Miss Hauton, “and then because you insisted upon it.”
“I!—Well, I did very right if I did, because you were keeping all the world waiting, and I knew you intended to do it at last—so I thought you might as well do it at first. But I don’t know what’s the matter with you this morning—we must drive a little spirit into you at Cheltenham.”
Captain Bellamy came up to pay his respects, or rather his compliments, to Miss Hauton: there was no respect in his manner, but the confidence of one who had been accustomed to be well received.
“She has not been well—fainted last night at a ball—is hipped this morning; but we’ll get her spirits up again when we have her at Cheltenham—We shall be a famous dashing party! I have been beating up for recruits all day—here’s one,” said Colonel Hauton, turning to Godfrey Percy.
“Excuse me,” said Godfrey, “I am engaged—I am obliged to join my regiment immediately.” He bowed gravely to Miss Hauton—wished her a good morning; and, without trusting himself to another look, retreated, saying to himself,
“Sir, she’s yours—You have brushed from the grape its soft blue;
From the rosebud you’ve shaken its tremulous dew:
What you’ve touched you may take.—Pretty waltzer, adieu!”
From this moment he mentioned Miss Hauton’s name no more in his own family. His whole mind now seemed, and not only seemed, but was, full of military thoughts. So quickly in youth do different and opposite trains of ideas and emotions succeed to each other; and so easy it is, by a timely exercise of reason and self-command, to prevent a fancy from becoming a passion. Perhaps, if his own happiness alone had been in question, Godfrey might not have shown precisely the same prudence; but on this occasion his generosity and honour assisted his discretion. He plainly saw that Miss Hauton was not exactly a woman whom he could wish to make his wife—and he was too honourable to trifle with her affections. He was not such a coxcomb as to imagine that, in the course of so slight an acquaintance, he could have made any serious impression on this young lady’s heart: yet he could not but perceive that she had distinguished him from the first hour he was introduced to her; and he was aware that, with her extreme sensibility, and an unoccupied imagination, she might rapidly form for him an attachment that might lead to mutual misery.
Mr. Percy rejoiced in his son’s honourable conduct, and he was particularly pleased by Godfrey’s determining to join his regiment immediately. Mr. Percy thought it advantageous for the eldest son of a man of fortune to be absent for some years from his home, from his father’s estate, tenants, and dependents, to see something of the world, to learn to estimate himself and others, and thus to have means of becoming a really respectable, enlightened, and useful country gentleman—not one of those booby squires, born only to consume the fruits of the earth, who spend their lives in coursing, shooting, hunting, carousing [Footnote: See an eloquent address to country gentlemen, in Young’s Annals of Agriculture, vol. i., last page.], “who eat, drink, sleep, die, and rot in oblivion.” He thought it in these times the duty of every young heir to serve a few years, that he might be as able, as willing, to join in the defence of his country, if necessary. Godfrey went, perhaps, beyond his father’s ideas upon this subject, for he had an ardent desire to go into the army as a profession, and almost regretted that his being an eldest son might induce him to forego it after a few campaigns.
Godfrey did not enter into the army from the puerile vanity of wearing a red coat and an epaulette; nor to save himself the trouble of pursuing his studies; nor because he thought the army a good lounge, or a happy escape from parental control; nor yet did he consider the military profession as a mercenary speculation, in which he was to calculate the chance of getting into the shoes, or over the head, of Lieutenant A—— or Captain B——. He had higher objects; he had a noble ambition to distinguish himself. Not in mere technical phrase, or to grace a bumper toast, but in truth, and as a governing principle of action, he felt zeal for the interests of the service. Yet Godfrey was not without faults; and of these his parents, fond as they were of him, were well aware.