ssly crushed. What
remained of their army was scattered by the cavalry, and since that
day, with some interludes, Claverhouse had been engaged in the
inglorious work of dispersing Presbyterian Conventicles gathered in
remote places among the hills, or searching the moss-hags for outlawed
preachers. It was a poor business for one who had seen war on the
grand scale under the Prince of Orange, and had fought in battles
where eighteen thousand men were left on the field. War was not the
name for those operations, they were simply police work of an irksome
and degrading kind. There were some who said that Claverhouse gloried
in it, and that the inherent cruelty of his nature was gratified in
causing obstinate Covenanters, who had not taken the oath, to be shot
on the spot, and haling others to prison, where they were treated with
extreme barbarity. Others believed that being a man of broad mind and
chivalrous temper, he absolutely disapproved of the government policy
and loathed the butcher work to which he and his troopers were set.

Upon one way of it he was a bloodthirsty tyrant, and upon the
other he was an obedient soldier, but the truth was with neither
view. There is no doubt that, like any other ambitious commander,
he would much rather have been engaged in a proper campaign, and it
may be granted that as a brave man he did not hanker to be the
executioner of peasants; but he absolutely approved of the policy
of his rulers, and had no scruple in carrying it out. It was the only
thing that could be done, and it had better be done thoroughly; the
sooner the turbulent and irreconcilable Covenanters were crushed
and the country reduced to peace the better for Scotland. And it
must be remembered that, though they were only a fraction of the
nation, the hillmen were a very resolute and harassing fraction,
and kept the western counties in a state of turmoil. No week passed
without some picturesque incident being added to the annals of this
lamentable religious war, and whether it was an escape or an
arrest, an attack or a defeat, the name of Claverhouse was always in
the story. The air was thick with rumors of his doings, and in every
cottage enraged Covenanters spoke of his atrocities. No doubt the
king had other officers quite as merciless and almost as active, and
the names of men like Grierson of Lag and Bruce of Earleshall and
that fierce old Muscovite fighter, General Dalziel, were engraved for
everlasting reprobati