Chapter 18

John Moseley returned from L---- within a week, and appeared as if his
whole delight consisted in knocking over the inoffensive birds. His
restlessness induced him to make Jarvis his companion; for although he
abhorred the captain's style of pursuing the sport, being in his opinion
both out of rule and without taste, yet he was a constitutional fidget,
and suited his own moving propensities at the moment. Egerton and Denbigh
were both frequently at the hall, but generally gave their time to the
ladies, neither being much inclined to the favorite amusement of John.

There was a little arbor within the walls of the park, which for years had
been a retreat from the summer heats to the ladies of the Moseley family;
even so long as the youth of Mrs. Wilson it had been in vogue, and she
loved it with a kind of melancholy pleasure, as the spot where she had
first listened to the language of love from the lips of her late husband.
Into this arbor the ladies had one day retired, during the warmth of a
noon-day sun, with the exception of Lady Moseley, who had her own
engagement in the house. Between Egerton and Denbigh there was maintained
a kind of courtly intercourse, which prevented any disagreeable collision
from their evident dislike. Mrs. Wilson thought, on the part of Denbigh,
it was the forbearance of a principled indulgence to another's weakness;
while the colonel's otherwise uniform good breeding was hardly able to
conceal a something amounting to very near repugnance. Egerton had taken
his seat on the ground, near the feet of Jane; and Denbigh was stationed
on a bench placed without the arbor but so near as to have the full
benefit of the shade of the noble oak, branches of which had been trained
so as to compose its principal covering. It might have been accident, that
gave each his particular situation; but it is certain they were so placed
as not to be in sight of each other, and so placed that the colonel was
ready to hand Jane her scissors, or any other little implement that she
occasionally dropped, and that Denbigh could read every lineament of the
animated countenance of Emily as she listened to his description of the
curiosities of Egypt, a country in which he had spent a few months while
attached to the army in Sicily. In this situation we will leave them for
an hour, happy in the society of each other, while we trace the route of
John Moseley and his companion, in their pursuit of woodcock, on the same
day.

"Do you know, Moseley," said Jarvis, who began to think he was a favorite
with John, now that he was admitted to his _menus plaisirs_, "that I have
taken it into my head this Mr. Denbigh was very happy to plead his morals
for not meeting me. He is a soldier, but I cannot find out