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