While we were discoursing thus, word was brought that several parties of the enemies were seen on the farther side of the river, upon which my lord gave the word to march; and as we were marching on, my lord calls out a lieutenant who had been an old soldier, with only five troopers whom he had most confidence in, and having given him his lesson, he sends him away.  In a quarter of an hour one of the five troopers comes back galloping and hallooing, and tells us his lieutenant had, with his small party, beaten a party of twenty of the enemy’s horse over the river, and had secured the pass, and desired my lord would march up to him immediately.

Tis a strange thing that men’s spirits should be subjected to such sudden changes, and capable of so much alteration from shadows of things.  They were for running before they saw the enemy, now they are in haste to be led on, and but that in raw men we are obliged to bear with anything, the disorder in both was intolerable.

The story was a premeditated sham, and not a word of truth in it, invented to raise their spirits, and cheat them out of their cowardly phlegmatic apprehensions, and my lord had his end in it; for they were all on fire to fall on.  And I am persuaded, had they been led immediately into a battle begun to their hands, they would have laid about them like furies; for there is nothing like victory to flush a young soldier.  Thus, while the humour was high, and the fermentation lasted, away we marched, and, passing one of their great commons, which they call moors, we came to the river, as he called it, where our lieutenant was posted with his four men; ’twas a little brook fordable with ease, and, leaving a guard at the pass, we advanced to the top of a small ascent, from whence we had a fair view of the Scots army, as they lay behind another river larger than the former.

Our men were posted well enough, behind a small enclosure, with a narrow lane in their front.  And my lord had caused his dragoons to be placed in the front to line the hedges; and in this posture he stood viewing the enemy at a distance.  The Scots, who had some intelligence of our coming, drew out three small parties, and sent them by different ways to observe our number; and, forming a fourth party, which I guessed to be about 600 horse, advanced to the top of the plain, and drew up to face us, but never offered to attack us.

One of the small parties, making about 100 men, one third foot, passes upon our flank in view, but out of reach; and, as they marched, shouted at us, which our men, better pleased with that work than with fighting, readily enough answered, and would fain have fired at them for the pleasure of making a noise, for they were too far off to hit them.

I observed that these parties had always some foot with them; and yet if the horse galloped, or pushed on ever so forward, the foot were as forward as they, which was an extraordinary advantage.