t, from the
frontiers of Scotland, Monk lent to the parliament. He judged there was
no time to be lost, and that the Tweed was not so far distant from
the Thames that an army could not march from one river to the other,
particularly when it was well commanded. He knew, besides, that as fast
as the soldiers of Monk penetrated into England, they would form on
their route that ball of snow, the emblem of the globe of fortune, which
is for the ambitious nothing but a step growing unceasingly higher
to conduct him to his object. He got together, therefore, his army,
formidable at the same time for its composition and its numbers, and
hastened to meet Monk, who, on his part, like a prudent navigator
sailing amidst rocks, advanced by very short marches, listening to the
reports which came from London.

The two armies came in sight of each other near Newcastle; Lambert,
arriving first, encamped in the city itself. Monk, always circumspect,
stopped where he was, and placed his general quarters at Coldstream, on
the Tweed. The sight of Lambert spread joy through Monk's army, whilst,
on the contrary, the sight of Monk threw disorder into Lambert's army.
It might have been thought that these intrepid warriors, who had made
such a noise in the streets of London, had set out with the hopes of
meeting no one, and that now seeing that they had met an army, and that
that army hoisted before them not only a standard, but still further, a
cause and a principle,--it might have been believed, we say, that
these intrepid warriors had begun to reflect that they were less good
republicans than the soldiers of Monk, since the latter supported the
parliament; whilst Lambert supported nothing, not even himself.

As to Monk, if he had had to reflect, or if he did reflect, it must have
been after a sad fashion, for history relates--and that modest dame, it
is well known, never lies--history relates, that the day of his arrival
at Coldstream search was made in vain throughout the place for a single
sheep.

If Monk had commanded an English army, that was enough to have brought
about a general desertion. But it is not with the Scots as it is
with the English, to whom that fluid flesh which is called blood is
a paramount necessity; the Scots, a poor and sober race, live upon a
little barley crushed between two stones, diluted with the water of the
fountain, and cooked upon another stone, heated.

The Scots, their distribution of barley being made,