Major Byfield was thus satisfactorily repressed--but only for the time. He had views and opinions of his own upon soldiering, and he was determined when opportunity came to give them full play. They had long persistently preached up and paraded before him the system in force in the Duke’s Own, but he had for as long come to the conclusion that the system was a bad one, and was resolved to reform it should he ever come into power. His character was a strange medley of opposite qualities. Behind the nervous diffidence, which being upon the surface seemed his most prominent trait, was an amount of quiet self-opinionated obstinacy which boded ill for those under his orders should he ever have much authority in his hands. Mrs. Byfield could have opened people’s eyes had she been permitted to disclose the secrets of the Byfield _ménage_. The major was as narrow-minded as a woman, and as prone to mistake the relative proportion of things, to entirely ignore the main issues, to neglect or overlook broad questions, and concentrate himself with much tenacity upon comparatively unimportant details. These peculiarities began to develop themselves very soon after he obtained the command. It became evident that the new colonel was a different man from what was supposed. He had been deemed a cipher--one who could hardly call his soul his own; but he proved a fussy, fidgetty, anxious creature, who from nervous apprehension, backed up by no small amount of self-conceit, promised to make everybody’s life a burden to him. The officers as a body began to fear that the good old times were on the wane. The decadence of the Duke’s Own must have fairly commenced when leave for hunting was refused and there were two commanding officers’ parades on the same day. The fact was, the Colonel had resolved to reform the regiment according to his own ideas, and had already set to work with a will. The points on which it fell short of perfection were very clear to his own mind--a weak, but extremely active mind. He thought the officers neglected their business and knew too little of it--facts incontrovertible no doubt, although the remedy was not easy to discover, and needed stronger treatment than Colonel Byfield was in a position to apply. He felt dissatisfied, too, with the demeanour of the men in quarters and on parade, and if it was more within his compass to bring about improvement in these respects, his task was likely to be surrounded with the greater difficulty if his officers were discontented and soured. But the Colonel could not see much beyond the end of his nose, and rushed forward blindly to his fate.