The panic now became general, and the face of the country was soon covered with a confused mass of terrified fugitives, hurrying on to avoid the swords of their conquerors, and increasing, as they fled, the disorder of their retreat, by throwing away their arms and their standards, in order to facilitate their flight. Wallace having crossed the ford alluded to by Lundin, the pursuit was followed up with the most destructive perseverance. The day of retribution had arrived;--the butcheries of Berwick, the carnage of Dunbar, with a long list of national indignities and personal sufferings had now to be atoned for. Conscious of the provocation which had roused to frenzy the vengeance of an infuriated people, Warren turned with dismay from the scene of havoc, leaving twenty thousand of his soldiers to manure the fields of those they had so lately oppressed. Cressingham, the most detested of all the tools of Edward, was among the number of the slain;--and when Wallace came up, a party were employed in flaying the body. According to the MS. Chronicle of Lanercost, he is said to have ordered only as much of the skin to be taken off as would make a sword-belt; and his men, perhaps, imitating his example, might have appropriated the rest. This, says a respectable author,[118] is no doubt the origin of the tale told by Abercromby and some other historians, of the Scots having used it as girths to their horses. An order of this kind, given in the heat of the pursuit, was perhaps never thought of afterwards; at least, we have no account of Wallace ever wearing such an appendage. The circumstance, however, shows the deep-rooted detestation with which the individual was regarded. Warren, who fled rapidly to Berwick, was most probably, like another English general of more modern times, the first herald of his own discomfiture. The consternation which his disaster occasioned among his countrymen in Scotland was so great, that few or none would venture to wait the approach of the enemy; but, abandoning their strongholds, they hurried southward with the greatest precipitation, justly conceiving that the terms they were likely to obtain from one who followed up his victories with so much energy, were hardly worth staying for. The loss on the part of the Scots was comparatively small; none of note having fallen, save the brave Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell.[119] In this manner was Scotland once more restored to that liberty of which she had been so unjustly deprived. Nor was the benefit conferred on the country less, than the glory which redounded to her gallant liberator. The brilliant and decisive victory at Stirling Bridge was gained on the 11th September 1297, exactly twelve months and eleven days from the return of Edward to Berwick, after what he conceived to be the final subjugation of the kingdom.