urge against this; one was that he would be united with
Romanists and supporting the cause of Rome and tyranny; and the other,
that being in an honourable position which must some day become
profitable to him, when he might marry and settle down as a citizen, he
would be wrong to abandon it for one where he might lose his life or
limbs, and, moreover, be employed in slaughtering his fellow-creatures.
He laughed at what he called my new ideas. I said that I was sure they
were right ideas, and that God never intended men to fight and destroy
one another.

"But if our country were attacked by foes, would you not fight?" he
asked.

"That is a different case," I said. "If I found myself a soldier, a
soldier I would remain, or if the country were attacked, I would become
one for the sake of defending it; but you have an honourable, peaceable
calling, and you propose quitting it without necessity for the sake of
going and fighting on the side of a people for whom you have no love,
against a nation many of whom are true Protestants and friendly disposed
to England."

He replied that he would think over what I had said; but I was afraid I
had made but little impression on him.

The army set forth without him, however. Some time after this I had
still greater difficulty in persuading him to remain at home, when news
came of the great battle fought on the banks of the Somme, near the town
of Saint Quentin. On one side were the Spanish, English, Flemish, and
German host, under the Duke of Savoy. The French were under Constable
Montmorency. They were beaten, with a dreadful loss. Never since the
fatal day of Agincourt had the French suffered a more disastrous defeat.
Six thousand were slain, and there were as many prisoners taken. The
Admiral Coligny bravely defended Saint Quentin to the last, but the
place was at length taken by storm, amidst horrors unspeakable.

When we heard of them, I asked A'Dale whether he still could wish he had
been there.

"No," he said; "honestly, I am thankful that I had not to take part in
such scenes."

And now I must briefly run over the events I find noted in my diary.

I bade farewell to school, and though Master Gresham talked of letting
me go to college, as he had gone, he afterwards altered his intentions,
since the Universities were under the complete control of Cardinal Pole
and his commissioners. "The object of going to college is to enlarge
the mind and gain knowledge; but