In that town, at the southern end of the bridge over the
Nith, the charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately set up a
large meeting-house. The clergy, as wild against the Covenanters as
Lauderdale himself, were very importunate with Claverhouse to demolish
this hotbed of disaffection; but he, though he confessed privately to
his chief his annoyance at seeing a conventicle held with impunity "at
our nose," answered all importunities with a calm reference to his
orders. The southern end of the bridge was in Galloway, and in Galloway
his commission did not run. The authority of the Deputy-Sheriff of the
shire was therefore called into play, and with his countenance the
offending building was quickly razed to the ground. In his report of
this business Claverhouse writes:--"My Lord, since I have seen the Act
of Council, the scruple I had about undertaking anything without the
bounds of these two shires is indeed frivolous, but was not so before.
For if there had been no such act, it had not been safe for me to have
done anything but what my order warranted; and since I knew it not, it
was to me the same thing as if it had not been. And for my ignorance of
it, I must acknowledge that till now, in any service I have been, I
never inquired further in the laws than the orders of my superior
officers.
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