The latter declared he had no other opinion than that of the majority.

Lambert asked if it would not be more expedient to terminate the quarrel by an alliance than by a battle.

Monk hereupon demanded a week for consideration.
Now, Lambert could not refuse this: and Lambert, nevertheless, had come saying that he should devour Monk's army.

Therefore, at the end of the interview, which Lambert's party watched with impatience, nothing was decided--neither treaty nor battle--the rebel army, as M.d'Artagnan had foreseen, began to prefer the good cause to the bad one, and the parliament, rumpish as it was, to the pompous nothings of Lambert's designs.
They remembered, likewise, the good feasts of London--the profusion of ale and sherry with which the citizens of London paid their friends the soldiers;--they looked with terror at the black war bread, at the troubled waters of the Tweed,--too salt for the glass, not enough so for the pot; and they said to themselves, "Are not the roast meats kept warm for Monk in London ?" From that time nothing was heard of but desertion in Lambert's army.

The soldiers allowed themselves to be drawn away by the force of principles, which are, like discipline, the obligatory tie in everybody constituted for any purpose.