"
"Thank you, Uncle Armstrong. I have often wondered how it was that the
Percys, being three to one against you, were yet defeated; fighting on
their own ground, as it were. 'Tis long, indeed, since we suffered so
great a reverse."
"That is true enough, Oswald. In the days of Wallace and Bruce, we
Scots often won battles with long odds against us; but that was because
we fought on foot, and the English for the most part on horseback--a
method good enough on an open plain, but ill fitted for a land of
morass and hill, like Scotland. Since the English also took to fighting
on foot, the chances have been equal; and we have repulsed invasions
not so much by force, as by falling back, and so wasting the country
that the English had but the choice of retreating or starving.
"There is reason, indeed, why, when equal forces are arrayed against
each other, the chances should also be equal; for we are come of the
same stock, and the men of the northern marches of England, and those
of Scotland, are alike hardy and accustomed to war. Were we but a
united people, as you English are, methinks that there would never have
been such constant wars between us; for English kings would not have
cared to have invaded a country where they would find but little spoil,
and have hard work to take it.
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