Even my prayers, When with most zeal sent upward, are pull’d down, With strong imaginary doubts and fears, And in their sudden precipice o’erwhelm me. MASSINGER. The close of the December following the battle of Keinton found Cuthbert in winter quarters at Warwick. His regiment marched into that city on the day before Christmas-day; and, as soon as the men were distributed in their quarters, he walked towards Milverton, from that natural impulse which inclines us all to revisit any spot where we have passed a part, however small, of our mysterious lives. It was a bright, clear, invigorating day: the ground was firm under the foot, and, though the sun shone out in a cloudless sky, there was so hard a frost that the pathways were clean. The trees glittered in the sun’s rays like frosted silver, and the face of nature looked healthy and cheerful, like the winter season of a hale old age. The step of Cuthbert was not so fast or active as travellers use in such weather. He walked like one who reluctantly takes exercise, and in company in which he takes no pleasure. He was alone, indeed, but with care and doubt for his companions. Since the battle, he had been advanced to the command of a company of musketeers, and Maxwell had distinguished him by particular attentions. Randal was still his more constant associate; and the petty and disagreeable perplexities to which he had been at first subjected by the uncongenial persons with whom he had been thrown, and by the novelty of the duties to which he had been called, had altogether vanished: for in three months habits are formed, and we become accustomed to any mode of life. To be accustomed, however, is not to be reconciled to it. But this was the least, and the most trifling and despised ingredient in the bitter cup from which Cuthbert daily drank,--his conscience was not at peace. He drugged it with an opium, extracted, by a very common process, from the precepts and the promises of Scripture; but there was not a day of his life that it did not awake to some doubts and horrors, and the same medicine, dangerous where it is unskilfully applied, was taken to excess. He felt himself embarked in a black ship, with a wild and motley crew, and he dared not own to himself that he mistrusted those who navigated the vessel. Her way was through gloom and danger, and the voyage might, after all, end in shipwreck. From the day of the battle, he was never seen to smile by any one; and from the severity of his thoughts, his countenance had gathered a sad yet stern complexion, which was not unsuitable to his present fortunes.