To the Scots, on the other hand, the affair was one of national life or death, and they would run no risks for distinction’s sake. Picturesque accounts have often been repeated of a scene where Douglas, or some other Scots leader, brought the Admiral to an elevated spot whence he could see and estimate the mighty host of England; but the most picturesque of all the accounts is the original by Froissart, of which the others are parodies. The point in national tactics brought out by this incident is the singular recklessness with which the French must have been accustomed to do battle. In total ignorance of the force he was to oppose, and not seeking to know aught concerning it, the Frenchman’s voice was still for war. When made to see with his own eyes what he had to encounter, he was as reluctant as his companions to risk the issue of a battle, but not so fertile in expedients for carrying on the war effectively without one. The policy adopted was to clear the country before the English army as it advanced, and carry everything portable and valuable within the recesses of the mountain-ranges, whither the inhabitants not fit for military service went with their effects. A desert being thus opened for the progress of the invaders, they were left to wander in it unmolested while the Scots army went in the opposite direction, and crossed the Border southwards. Thus the English army found Scotland empty—the Scots army found England full. The one wore itself out in a fruitless march, part of it straggling, it was said, as far as Aberdeen, and returned thinned and starving, while the other was only embarrassed by the burden of its plunder. Much destruction there was, doubtless, on both sides, but it fell heaviest where there was most to destroy, and gratified at last in some measure the French, who “said among themselves they had burned in the bishoprics of Durham and Carlisle more than the value of all the towns in the kingdom of Scotland.” But havoc does not make wealth, and whether or not the Scots knew better from experience how to profit by such opportunities, the French, when they returned northward, were starving. Their object now was to get out of the country as fast as they could. Froissart, with a touch of dry humour, explains that their allies had no objection to speed the exit of the poorer knights, but resolved to hold the richer and more respectable in a sort of pawn for the damage which the expedition had inflicted on the common people. The Admiral asked his good friends the Lords Douglas and Moray to put a stop to these demands; but these good knights were unable to accommodate their brethren in this little matter, and the Admiral was obliged to give effectual pledges from his Government for the payment of the creditors. There is something in all this that seems utterly unchivalrous and even ungenerous; but it had been well for France had Froissart been able to tell a like story of her peasantry.