Never, however, was a human being more thoroughly out of his element than Master Cuthbert as lieutenant in this said company of pikemen under the orders of Captain Ruddiman. He could contrive, indeed, a little leisure and a little solitude most days; but even those brief seasons of meditation and enjoyment were often broken in upon by a sergeant hurrying after him to say that perhaps eleven set of new straps for back and breast pieces were wanting, or that two pikes were broken, and three men had lost the scabbards of their tucks. Moreover, he could hardly find a private path or walk near St. Albans, where he did not come suddenly upon a few military sinners, who had stolen out of the sight of their preaching officers and praying comrades to have a game of trap-ball, tip-cat, or the greater abominations of cross and pile, pitch and hustle, and chuck farthing. Nay, upon one occasion, he surprised a little party under a buttress of the abbey playing at primero, trump, put, or beat the knave out of doors, with two dollys sitting in their company, of whom it might be plainly seen that they had no business in a garrison of Puritans. But he was in these moments usually in too absorbed a mood to take notice of and reprove these transgressors, and was quite as anxious to turn away his eyes as the soldiers were to see them so averted. One day, as he wandered into the abbey a little before sunset, and was standing lost in thought before the monument of Lord Bacon, and contemplating the fine alabaster effigy of that great philosopher, he heard himself gently addressed by name, and turning to the speaker, he recognised, with as much surprise as delight, his worthy and invaluable friend Randal, the surgeon of Warwick, to whose skilful care and kind treatment he held himself indebted, under God, for his life.