father and the son; and the ministers, now that the anger of Heaven had
been appeased, assured their hearers of an easy victory over a "blaspheming
general and a sectarian army."[1]

If their predictions were not verified, the fault was undoubtedly their
own. The caution and vigilance of Leslie had triumphed over the skill and
activity of "the blasphemer." Cromwell saw no alternative but victory or
retreat: of the first he had no doubt, if he could come in contact with the
enemy; the second was a perilous attempt, when the passes before him
were pre-occupied, and a more numerous force was hanging on his rear. At
Musselburg, having sent the sick on board the fleet (they suffered both
from the "disease of the country," and from fevers caused by exposure on
the Pentland hills), he ordered[a] the army to march the next morning to
Haddington, and thence to Dunbar; and the same night a meteor, which the
imagination of the beholders likened to a sword of fire, was seen to pass
over Edinburgh in a south-easterly direction, an evident presages in the
opinion of the Scots, that the flames of war would be transferred

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 91, 92, 95. The English parliament in their
answer exclaim: "What a blessed and hopeful change is wrought in a moment
in this young king! How hearty is he become to the cause of God and the
work of reformation. How readily doth he swallow down these bitter pills,
which are prepared for and urged upon him, as necessary to effect that
desperate care under which his affairs lie! But who sees not the crass
hypocrisy of this whole transaction, and the sandy and rotten foundation
of all the resolutions flowing hereupon?"--See Parliamentary History, xix.
359-386.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 30.]