The Southrons' country was panic-struck at the defeat of Percy, his beaten army, flying in all directions before the conquering legions, gave such dreadful and hyperbolical accounts of their might, and of the giant prowess of their leader, that as soon as ever the Scottish spears were seen rising the summit of any hill, or even gleaming along the horizon, every village was deserted, every cot left without inhabitant; and corn, and cattle, and every kind of property fell into the hands of the Scots. Lord Precy lay immovable with wounds in his castle at Alnwick;** and his hopeless state, by intimidating his followers, contradicted the orders he gave, to face the marauding enemy. Several times they attempted to obey, but as often showed their inability. They collected under arms; but the moment their foe appeared, they fled within the castle walls, or buried themselves in deep obscurities amongst the surrounding hills. Not a sheaf in the fields of Northumberland did the Scots leave, to knead into bread for its earl; not a head of cattle to smoke upon his board. The country was sacked from sea to sea. But far different was its appearance from that of the trampled valleys of Scotland. There, fire had burned up the soil; the hand of violence had leveled the husbandman's cottage; had buried his implements in the ruins; had sacrificed himself on its smoking ashes! There, the fatherless babe wept its unavailing wants, and at its side sat the distracted widow, wringing her hands in speechless misery; for there lay her murdered husband--here, her perishing child! **This famous castle, of so many heroic generations, is still the princely residence of the head of the house of Percy. With such sights the heart of Wallace had been pierced, when he passed through the lowland counties of his country; nay, as he scoured the highland districts of the Grampians, even there had he met the foot of barbarian man, and cruel desolation. For thus it was that the Southron garrisons had provisional themselves; by robbing the poor of their bread; and, when they resisted, firing their dwellings, and punishing the refractory with death.