Maud's face glowed with pleasure, and her companion's last thought of getting in time to Dustypore disappeared.
Before the sketch was done the evening shadows were already fast climbing up the mountain's side; the valley's short day was over; cold masses of vapour were gathering about the crags; and the moon, that was to light the traveller through his night-long journey, was sailing, pale and ghostlike, overhead. Boldero waved them a last farewell as he disappeared round the opposite hillside, and seemed to Maud's excited imagination like some knight-errant riding down into the gloom.
CHAPTER XV.
A DISTRICT OFFICER.
Their aches, hopes,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes,
That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
In life's uncertain voyage——
Boldero was one of the Queen's good bargains. His mind teemed with schemes for the regeneration of mankind. Disappointment could not damp his hopefulness, nor difficulty cool his zeal; he was an enthusiast for improvement and the firmest believer in its possibility. Against stupidity, obstinacy, the blunders of routine, official vis inertiæ, he waged a warfare which, if not always discreet, was sufficiently vigorous to plague his opponents: 'See,' cries Mr. Browning's philanthropist,
I have drawn a pattern on my nail
And I will carve the world fresh after it—
Boldero's nails were absolutely covered with new patterns, and the little bit of the world on which he was able to operate was continually being carved into some improved condition. Nature having gifted him with courage, high spirit, resource, inventiveness, enterprise, and—precious gift!—administrative effectiveness, and Fortune and the Staff Corps having guided his steps from a frontier regiment to a civilian appointment in the Sandy Tracts, his importance was speedily appreciated. Wherever he looked at the machinery about him he saw things out of gear and working badly, and his mind was forthwith haunted with devices to improve them. He saw material, money, time wasted; wheel catching against wheel and producing all sorts of bad results by the friction; office coming to dead-lock with office; one blundering head knocking against another; wants to which no one attended; wrongs which no one avenged; sufferings to which no hand brought relief. Some men see such things and acquiesce in them as inevitable or relieve themselves by cynical remarks on the best of all possible worlds. Boldero felt it all as a personal misfortune and was incapable of acquiescence.