''
While these whispers were working their effect
in society, they did not prevent Hartley from receiving
the most flattering assurances of encouragement
and official promotion from the Madras government
as opportunity should arise. Soon after,
it was intimated to him that a medical appointment
of a lucrative nature in a remote settlement was
conferred on him, which removed him for some time
from Madras and its neighbourhood.
Hartley accordingly sailed on his distant expedition;
and it was observed, that after his departure,
the character of Middlemas, as if some check had
been removed, began to display itself in disagreeable
colours. It was noticed that this young man,
whose manners were so agreeable and so courteous
during the first months after his arrival in India,
began now to show symptoms of a haughty and
overbearing spirit. He had adopted, for reasons
which the reader may conjecture, but which appeared
to be mere whim at Fort St George, the
name of Tresham, in addition to that by which he
had hitherto been distinguished, and in this be
persisted with an obstinacy, which belonged more
to the pride than the craft of his character. The
Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, an old cross-tempered
martinet, did not choose to indulge the
Captain (such was now the rank of Middlemas) in
this humour.
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