,
his bearing of gallantry. Yet methought there was something relentless
about the man--something that friend might one day feel the bite of as
well as foe. For this was the man who, at his master's word, was now
driving Scotland before him as sheep are driven into buchts on the
hillside. But Scotland did not easily take to praying according to Act
of Parliament, and I minded the witty old gentlewoman's word to
Claverhouse himself, "Knox didna win his will without clavers, an'
aiblins Clavers winna get his withoot knocks." It was a witty saying and
a true, and many a day I lay in the moss-hags and wished that I had said
it.

Yet I think we of the Ancient Province never felt so keenly the
bitterness of his oppression, though mostly it was without bowels of
mercy, as we did the riding and driving of Robert Grier of Lag, of
Douglas of Morton, of Queensberry and Drumlanrig, that were of
ourselves--familiar at our tables, and ofttimes near kinsmen as well.

What John Graham did in the way of cess and exaction, and even of
shooting and taking, was in some measure what we had taken our count and
reckoning with. But that men who knew our outgoings and incomings, our
strengths and fastnesses, who had companied with us at kirk and market,
should harry us like thieves, made our hearts wondrously hot and angry
within us. For years I never prayed without making it a petition that I
might get a fair chance at Robert Grier--if it were the Lord's will. And
indeed it is not yet too late.

But it was Claverhouse that had come across us now.

"You would kill more King's men!" he cried to Wat Gordon; "you that have
come hither to do your best to undo the treason of your forebears. My
lad, that is the way to get your head set on the Netherbow beside your
father's. Are there no man-sworn Whigs in the West that true men must
fall to hacking one another?"

He turned upon Inglis as fiercely:

"Cornet, are you upon duty? By what right do you fall to brawling with
an ally of the country? Have we overly many of them in this accursed
land, where there are more elephants and crocodiles in Whig-ridden
Galloway than true men on whom the King may rely?"

But Inglis said never a word, being pale from the draining of his wound.
I looked for him to denounce me as a rebel and a spy; but he was wholly
silent, for the man after all was a man.

"How began ye this brawling?" quoth Claverhouse, looking from one to the
other of them, minding me no more