On leaving Banbury, the enemy, marching in column of route, took the road through Stratford-on-Avon to Wootton Wawen, where a halt for twenty-four hours was made in order to mature plans for an organised attack on Birmingham. Wootton Hall, after being looted, was made the headquarters, and from thence was issued an order on the following day which caused Warwick and Leamington to be swept and burned by the invaders, who afterwards broke into two divisions. One body, consisting of 50,000 men, including an advance guard of 5000, took the right-hand road from Wootton to Birmingham, through Sparkbrook; while the remaining 100,000 bore away to the left through Ullenhall and Holt End to the extremity of the Hagley Hills, intending to occupy them. They had already been informed that strong defences had been established at King's Norton, in the immediate vicinity, and knew that severe fighting must inevitably ensue; therefore they lost no time in establishing themselves along the high ground between Redditch and Barnt Green, in a position commanding the two main roads south from Dudley and Birmingham. That a most desperate stand would be made for the defence of the Metropolis of the Midlands the Russian commander was well aware. After the long march his troops were jaded, so, bivouacing in Hewell Park, he awaited for nearly two days the reports of his spies. These were not so reassuring as he had anticipated, for it appeared that the high ground south of the city, notably at King's Norton, Northfield, Harborne, Edgbaston, and along the Hagley Road, was occupied by strong bodies of troops and a large number of guns, and that every preparation had been made for a stubborn resistance. It also appeared that at the entrance to the city at Sparkbrook, which road had been taken by the right column, very little resistance was likely to be offered. That the positions occupied by the defenders had been very carefully chosen as the most advantageous the Russian commander was bound to admit, and although he possessed such a large body of men it would require considerable tactical skill to dislodge the defenders in order to prevent them covering with their guns the country over which the Russian division, taking the right-hand roads, must travel. [Illustration: THE BATTLEFIELD OF BIRMINGHAM.] During that day an encounter of a most fierce description occurred between hostile reconnoitring parties on the road between Bromsgrove Lickey and Northfield. The road gradually ascended with a walled-in plantation on either side, and the enemy were proceeding at a comfortable pace when suddenly a number of rifles rattled out simultaneously, and then it was discovered that the wall had been loopholed, and that the British were pouring upon them a deadly hail from which there was no shelter. The walls bristled with rifles, and from them came a storm of bullets that killed and wounded dozens of the invaders.