Without giving his leaderless regiment a moment to think Monk followed up the blow with a pithy and soldier-like speech, asking them if they thought it right for the Scotch army to submit to the insolent extravagancies of the home forces. "For my own part," he cried, "I think myself obliged by the duty of my place to keep the military power in obedience to the civil. Since we have received our pay and commissions from the Parliament it is our duty to defend them. In this I expect the ready obedience of you all. But if any do declare their dissent to my resolution, they shall have liberty to leave the service, and may take their passes to be gone." A thundering shout greeted his words. Not a man was there but cried with wild enthusiasm he would live and die for "old George." Edinburgh was won, but the day's work was not yet over. As he left the parade-ground a despatch was put into his hand. It was from his friend Colonel Myers, the governor of Berwick. The key of the London road was of the first importance to Monk, and Myers declared he could not hold it against the numerous Anabaptist officers in his command. Monk immediately ordered a troop of horse to his assistance; but a new difficulty arose. Berwick was forty miles away. Not a trooper was in Edinburgh who had not ridden twenty that day. The roads were deep in mire, and every one declared the march impossible. It was a word Monk did not often listen to. The march must be made. The general appealed to Johnson as he only knew how, and as the night fell the captain and his troop were spurring for the Border through the Nether Bow Port. Monk's drastic proceedings at Edinburgh were but a type of what happened all over Scotland. By the time he had in person secured and purged Leith and Linlithgow, messengers began to pour into headquarters to report that everywhere his promptitude had paralysed resistance. Every garrison was in his hands and every high-road was resounding with the tramp of the troops he had ordered to concentrate on Edinburgh. There, too, Colonel Cobbett arrived a prisoner. It was Johnson's offering to his general. It had been the first act of the Committee of Safety to send up the colonel post-haste to secure not only Berwick, but the Scotch army as well, and to arrest Monk if he objected. A few hours before he reached the Border Johnson's exhausted troop had toiled into Berwick, and Cobbett arrived to find himself a prisoner.