s than an hour from the commencement of the
fighting the rout was complete. Three thousand Scotch were killed, and
ten thousand taken prisoners.

Harry's regiment was but slightly engaged. It had been one of the last
to march down the hill on the evening before, and Harry and Jacob
foresaw the disaster which would happen. "If I were the king," Harry
said, "I would order every one of these preachers out of camp, and would
hang those who disobeyed. Then I would march the army on to the hill
again. If they wait there the English must attack us with grievous
disadvantage, or such as cannot get on board their ships must surrender.
Charles would really be king then, and could disregard the wrath of the
men of the conventicles. Cromwell will attack us to-morrow, and will
defeat us; his trained troops are more than a match for these Scotchmen,
who think more of their preachers than of their officers, and whose
discipline is of the slackest."

"I agree with you entirely," Jacob said. "But in the present mood of the
army, I believe that half of them would march away if the general
dismissed the preachers."

The next day, when the fight began, Harry moved forward his regiment to
the support of the Scottish right, but before he came fairly into the
fray this had already given away, and Harry, seeing that the day was
lost, halted his men, and fell back in good order. Again and again the
Ironsides charged them. The leveled pikes and heavy musketry fire each
time beat them off, and they marched from the field almost the only body
which kept its formation. Five thousand of the country people among the
prisoners Cromwell allowed to depart to their homes. The remainder he
sent to Newcastle, where great numbers of them were starved to death by
the cruelty of the governor, Sir Arthur Hazelrig. The remainder were
sent as slaves to New England.

Leslie, with the wreck of his army, fell back to Stirling, while
Charles, with the Scotch authorities, went to Perth. Here the young
king, exasperated beyond endurance at the tyranny of Argyll and the
fanatics, escaped from them, and with two or three friends rode fifty
miles north. He was overtaken and brought back to Perth, but the anger
of the army was so hot at his treatment that the fanatics were
henceforth obliged to put a curb upon themselves, and a strong king's
party, as opposed to that of the Covenant, henceforth guided his
counsels.

The winter passed quietly. The English troops were