But Queensberry was no match for Lauderdale;
and Claverhouse was duly settled in his new office, which, while
strengthening his hands and enabling him to dispense with many tedious
formalities, at the same time considerably increased his labours.
And so winter passed into spring, and still Claverhouse found no work
more worthy of him than patrolling the country, arranging for his men's
quarters, examining suspected persons, and endeavouring to persuade the
Government to leave him not entirely penniless. More than once he sent
word to Edinburgh that he believed something serious was afoot. "I
find," he writes to Linlithgow on April 21st, "Mr. Welsh is accustoming
both ends of the country to face the king's forces, and certainly
intends to break out into open rebellion." This Welsh is a famous figure
in Covenanting history. Grandson to a man whose name was long held in
affectionate memory by his party as that of the "incomparable John Welsh
of Ayr," and great-grandson to no less a hero than John Knox himself, he
was on his own account a memorable man. He had inaugurated the first
conventicle, and had ever since been zealous in promoting them and
officiating at them among the wild hills and moorlands of the western
shires, till his name had become a byword among the soldiers for his
courage in braving and his skill in evading them.
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