But certain anecdotes he recalls in his "History of the World," one of which is well worth telling in his own good words, because it shows the manner of fighting that prevailed in these wars: "I saw in the third Civil War of France certain caves in Languedoc which had but one entrance, and that very narrow, cut out in the midway of high rocks, which we knew not how to enter by any ladder or engine; till at last by certain bundles of straw, let down by an iron chain, and a weighty stone in the midst, those that defended it were so smothered as they rendered themselves with their plate, money and other goods therein hidden."
He was not, however, always among the caves and hedgerows; almost certainly he was in Paris in 1572, sheltering with Philip Sidney in the house of the ambassador, Walsingham, when the terrible and famous massacre took place during the night of St. Bartholomew's Eve, in which the friends of the Duke of Guise boasted that more Protestants were slain than in the whole of the twelve years of the war.
CHAPTER III
TOWARDS MANHOOD
Friendship with George Gascoyne—Its importance—Ralegh in London—The arch-gossip Aubrey—Elizabethan London—Ralegh and Sir Humfrey Gilbert—The beginning of the great enterprise.
Ralegh returned from France in 1575 or 1576; and there are three years of his life—important years, from the age of twenty-three to twenty-six—which contain little or no record of his doings. Some authors, on the slenderest authority, maintain that he trailed a pike in the Lowlands, under Sir John Norris. But this is unlikely. The time of his possible presence there has been adroitly whittled down by William Oldys to the early part of the year 1578, and quite recently a document has been discovered bearing his signature, and the date of the deed is April 11th, 1578. If the signature is genuine, and expert evidence points to the fact that it is so, this is an additional, almost conclusive, proof that during these three years he remained in England.
There is another matter, intrinsically small, but exceedingly important because it throws a great light on his pursuits at this time. To George Gascoigne's satirical poem "The Steele Glas" is appended, among other commendatory verses, a poem by Walter Rawely, of the Middle Temple, which runs as follows—
"Swete were the sauce, would please ech kind of tast
The life likewise, were pure that never swerved
For spyteful tongs, in cankred stomaches plaste,
Deeme worst of things, which best (percase) deserved:
But what for that? this medcine may suffyse,
To scorne the rest, and seke to please the wise.
"Though sundry mindes in sundry sorte do deeme
Yet worthiest wights yelde praise for every payne,
But envious braynes, do nought (or light) esteeme
Such stately steppes as they cannot attaine.
For who so reapes, renowne above the rest,
With heapes of hate, shal surely be opprest.
"Wherefore to write, my censure of this booke
This Glasse of Steele impartially doth shewe,
Abuses all, to such as in it looke,
From prince to poore, from high estate to lowe
As for the verse, who lists like trade to trye,
I feare me much, shal hardly reache so high."