An express had arrived from Dunbar's camp.

Fugitives were pouring in there.

Should he go and see?
He must go and see.

He and stout little Dempster armed themselves and mounted, taking a couple of mounted servants with them.
They followed the northward track which the expeditionary army had hewed out for itself, and at every step which brought them nearer to the scene of action, the disaster of the fearful day seemed to magnify.

The day after the defeat a number of the miserable fugitives from the fatal battle of the 9th July had reached Dunbar's camp, fifty miles from the field.