ere lying by the roadside waiting for a meal, I don't
think he would be likely to interfere with me."

So saying, he lightly touched the horse's flanks with his spurs and
cantered off.

"He's a fine young fellow, Garnet," Mr. Hunter said to his companion;
"full of energy, and, they say, the very best linguist in Oude."

"Yes, he is all that," the other agreed; "but he is a sort of fellow
one does not quite understand. I like a man who is like other fellows;
Bathurst isn't. He doesn't shoot, he doesn't ride--I mean he don't care
for pig sticking; he never goes in for any fun there may be on hand; he
just works--nothing else; he does not seem to mix with other people;
he is the sort of fellow one would say had got some sort of secret
connected with him."

"If he has, I am certain it is nothing to his personal disadvantage,"
Mr. Hunter said warmly. "I have known him for the last six years--I
won't say very well, for I don't think anyone does that, except,
perhaps, Doctor Wade. When there was a wing of the regiment up here
three years ago he and Bathurst took to each other very much--perhaps
because they were both different from other people. But, anyhow, from
what I know of Bathurst I believe him to be a very fine character,
though there is certainly an amount of reserve about him altogether
unusual. At any rate, the service is a gainer by it. I never knew a
fellow work so indefatigably. He will take a very high place in the
service before he has done."

"I am not so sure of that," the other said. "He is a man with opinions
of his own, and all sorts of crotchets and fads. He has been in hot
water with the Chief Commissioner more than once. When I was over at
Lucknow last I was chatting with two or three men, and his name happened
to crop up, and one of them said, 'Bathurst is a sort of knight errant,
an official Don Quixote. Perhaps the best officer in the province in
some respects, but hopelessly impracticable.'"

"Yes, that I can quite understand, Garnet. That sort of man is never
popular with the higher official, whose likings go to the man who does
neither too much nor too little, who does his work without questioning,
and never thinks of making suggestions, and is a mere official machine.
Men of Bathurst's type, who go to the bottom of things, protest against
what they consider unfair decisions, and send in memorandums showing
that their superiors are hopelessly ignorant and idiotically wrong, are
always cordia