Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/63

 his eyes, as he gazed back with white face on the smoking city:—

""Comrades, our march will be through a land of fire, and the people will bar our passage with their blistered and blackened bodies, for truly they know not when they are conquered.""

This battle, and the destruction of Edinburgh, produced a prodigious sensation throughout England and Scotland. Up to this disaster it is probable that not a man in all England thought or believed that the invaders could advance far into the country. "The French will be driven into the sea." "They will be annihilated," had been on every one's lips. Now Edinburgh was in ruins, and the foe was marching southwards with rapid strides.

HE French Commander-in-Chief knew perfectly well that, being in a hostile country, his march would be a difficult one, but he could scarcely have anticipated the opposition he everywhere met with. From the North to Edinburgh his troops had suffered greatly by the predatory attack of scattered foes; now as he went south, towards Carlisle, it seemed as if every hill, every wood, every ravine suddenly produced men by magic. They started up from the heather, and bounded down from the rocks, and with weapons of all kinds, from rifles to reaping-hooks, they threw themselves on the flanks of the advancing army, and slew scores before they themselves were slain. They gave