Claverhouse by Mowbray Morris
page 60 of 216 (27%)
page 60 of 216 (27%)
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well to join forces with Ross in case there might be need for action.
This was done at Glasgow on Saturday; and at once Claverhouse set off for Rutherglen to inquire into the affair of the 29th. As soon as he had got the names of the ringleaders he sent patrols out to scour the neighbourhood for them. A few prisoners were picked up, and among them one King, a noted orator of the conventicles, formerly chaplain to Lord Cardross, whose service he had left, it is said, on account of a little misadventure with one of the maid-servants. The troops halted for the night at Strathavon, and early next morning set off with their prisoners for Glasgow. On the way Claverhouse determined on "a little tour, to see if we could fall upon a conventicle," which, he ingenuously adds, "we did, little to our advantage." During his search for the Rutherglen men he had heard more of the plans for Sunday. It was clear something was in the air, and report named Loudon Hill as the place of business, a steep and rocky eminence marking the spot where the shires of Ayr, Lanark, and Renfrew meet. To Loudon Hill accordingly Claverhouse turned his march, and soon found that rumour had for once not exaggerated. Two miles to the east of the hill lies the little hamlet and farm of Drumclog, even now but sparsely covered with coarse meadow-grass, and then no more than a barren stretch of swampy moorland. South and north the ground sloped gently down towards a marshy bottom through which ran a stream, or dyke, fringed with stunted alder-bushes. On the foot of the southern slope, across the dyke, the Covenanters were drawn up; and the practised eye of Claverhouse saw at a glance that they had gathered there not to pray but to fight. "When we came in sight of them," he wrote to Linlithgow, "we found them drawn up in battle upon a most advantageous ground, to which there was no coming but through mosses and |
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