Mr. Harmer was extremely anxious that his son should marry early and well; not well in a worldly point of view, but to some true woman, to whom he could look up, and who would in time correct the faults of his character. Those faults his father saw and understood; and he feared much that his weak and facile disposition would render him liable to fall into serious errors and faults, and would be not unlikely to lead him to be entrapped into some hasty marriage, the evil consequences of which might be incalculable to him. Mr. Harmer therefore watched with anxiety to see to which, among the various young girls of the neighbourhood, Gerald was most attracted, and at first he gave his father some little trouble. New to female society, it possessed an infinite charm to him; but he seemed to admire too generally to devote himself to any one in particular, and although he at once commenced a series of active flirtations, he appeared quite unable to single out any one for especial preference. _Les absents ont toujours tort_; and the converse of the proverb seemed to him to be equally true--the present are always right. Whosoever might chance to be in his society would assuredly, for the time being, appear to approach the nearest to perfection. Gerald Harmer was certainly a much greater favourite with the girls than he was with their fathers and brothers. That languid, indolent way of his, as if he rather thought that it was the duty of other people to devote themselves to his amusement, and which made the men vote him a puppy, was to them quite new and very amusing. Girls, too, rather like occasionally reversing positions, and bestowing homage instead of receiving it; and so the lively country girls enjoyed these languid flirtations with Gerald, and entered into them with great spirit, laughing in their sleeves, perhaps, at him while they did so, and not being in the least likely to become the victims of any very ardent passion.
When the shooting season commenced, however, a great change came over him, for he threw himself into the sport with an ardour that astonished his father. At last he really seemed to have found something worth caring for, and in a short time, by his devotion for field sports, he rose many degrees in the estimation of the young squires, who agreed that Gerald Harmer had turned out a capital fellow after all, in spite of his airs and nonsense. It is probable that he sank in the sisters' estimation as he rose in the brothers', for he now no longer cared for female society, and spent the whole of his time either in shooting over his own or other estates, with parties of their young owners, or sometimes alone, with no other companion than Long William, the keeper--or else in hunting, to which also he took with great ardour. His sporting tastes rapidly developed; dogs, horses, and guns occupied his whole thoughts; and few would have recognized in the figure in shooting-jacket and gaiters, returning splashed to the head, after a hard day's work, the indolent lounger who had considered it almost too great a trouble to think for himself. His father observed this change with pleasure, as he had noticed with pain his son's increasing listlessness, although he was personally a loser by it; for Gerald had been hitherto his constant companion in his walks over his estate, and his visits of kindness at his labourers' cottages, which, under his care, assumed a very different and far more comfortable aspect than that which they had worn under the old _régime_. Still, he felt that it might do him much good; he thought it natural that the young man should be fond of sport, and should seek the companionship of men of his own age; and though he missed the former familiar intercourse with his son, he assented with a little sigh of regret to the new state of things, and told himself that it was much better so, and was very right and proper. Even of an evening it was seldom now that Gerald accompanied his father to the houses of the neighbouring gentry, always pleading fatigue, or some other excuse, for not doing so. On these occasions, when his father had started alone, he would be sure to find some pretext, some forgotten order, or question which must be asked, as a reason for strolling down in the course of the evening to smoke a pipe with his inseparable ally, Long William, the keeper.