midnight
Sharp pains racked him from head to foot , and his pulses burned as if from fever . It was like the weariness of old age , he thought , this utter hopelessness , these strained and quivering muscles . As a boy he had been hardy as an Indian and as fearless of fatigue . Now the long midnight gallops on Prince Rupert over frozen roads returned to him like the dim memories from some old romance . They belonged to the place of half-forgotten stories , with the gay waistcoats and the Christmas gatherings in the hall at Chericoke . For a country that was not he had given himself as surely as the men who were buried where they fought , and his future would be but one long struggle to adjust himself to conditions in which he had no part . His proper nature was compacted of the old life which was gone forever -- of its ease , of its gayety , of its lavish pleasures .