This is what Graeme now began to do. Since he had received recognition, and with it the birth of ambition, he had become firmly convinced that he was destined to join the ranks of the great, and the more he read about them the surer and more exultant he grew, for in the story of their lives he recognised a hundred traits of character similar to his own, particularly in their oddities and eccentricities, on which his mind eagerly seized.
There were some among them, it is true, in whom no sign of himself was to be met with, these the eminently sane and methodical characters; but such he passed over as lacking in the true fire of genius, and their biographies, once scanned, were thrown aside and looked at no more. Of the others, however, there was one in whose character he especially delighted, that one being Prince Suvarov, the great Russian.
His power over his soldiers, eccentricity of attire, recklessness of consequences, and, above all, the ingrained determination to attack and never wait on the defensive, all these characteristics he felt himself to possess; and inasmuch as Suvarov not only scorned to conceal, but gloried in, the revelation of mental peculiarity, so now did Hector do the same, giving full rein to that passion for difference from his fellows which hitherto, chiefly from the wish to please Lucy—to whom such was anathema—he had to a certain extent concealed.
The immediate result of this was, as usual, in the army, the bestowal of a nickname, Graeme soon becoming known as "Mad Jack," a designation which stuck to him till the day of his death. This, far from annoying its recipient, delighted him, and fired by the sensation he was causing he went further. One of his habits, that of riding down the line of blockhouses in a state of nature save for a towel, having come to the ears of the General commanding the district, the result was a sharp reproof and request that Colonel Graeme would in future comport himself as an officer and a gentleman.
To this Hector replied in rhyme, which so infuriated its recipient that he reported the matter to Headquarters, and for a time Graeme’s career was in serious jeopardy. Providentially, at this crisis the enemy at last thought fit to put in an appearance, their assembly at a farmhouse three miles distant, with the avowed object of capturing Hector, who as a colonel was worth something, being reported to the latter by an English farmer living in the district.