passes off it for
ever. It is with the tale of that brief time, so crowded with action, so
variously recorded, that we shall be from this point concerned.

He was now in his thirty-fifth year. Confused and conflicting as the
witnesses of his life and character may be, of the man himself as he
looked to the eyes of his contemporaries there is the clearest
testimony. Over the mantelpiece of Scott's study in Castle Street hung
the only picture in the room--a portrait of Claverhouse. An original
portrait Lockhart calls it, but which of the five portraits engraved in
Napier's volumes it may have been, if any of them, I cannot tell. All
these engravings, with a unanimity not common in the portraiture of the
time, show the same face: a face of delicate, almost feminine beauty,
framed in the long full love-locks of the period.[15] The eyes are large
and dark, the figure small but well made, and the general expression of
the countenance one of almost boyish smoothness and simplicity. His
manners were gentle and courteous, though reserved: his habit of life
was, as has been already said, singularly decorous: he was scrupulous in
the observance of all religious ordinances. After his death an old
Presbyterian lady, who had lodged below him in Edinburgh, told Lochiel's
biographer how astonished she had been to find one of his profession so
regular in his devotions. In truth, one of the most curious, and at the
same time one of the most indisputable, points in the life of this
singular man is the contrast between those public actions which have had
so large a share in moulding the popular impression, and his private
character and conduct. And not less curious is the contrast between the
reality of his personal appearance and the counterfeit presentment
likely to be fostered by a too liberal adherence to that impression. It
would be difficult to imagine a more complete surprise than awaits those
who turn for the first time from the stern, brutal, and profane soldier
of the historian's page to the high-bred and graceful gentleman of the
painter's canvas.

Claverhouse seems to have received his commission in the autumn of 1678.
The earliest of his letters extant is dated from Moffat, a small town
in the north of Dumfriesshire, on December 28th. It is addressed to Lord
Linlithgow, and contains this significant passage: "On Tuesday was eight
days, and Sunday there were great field-conventicles just by here, with
great contempt of the re