“A considerable number of people assembled at that field-meeting, and, as usual in these times, the greater part of them came armed. Captain Grahame of Claverhouse was, by Lord Ross, who commanded the military in Glasgow, sent out with three troops of dragoons to attack and disperse that Conventicle. He had seized, about two miles from Hamilton, John King, a field-preacher, and, according to Mr. Wilson’s account, seventeen other people, whom he bound in pairs, and drove before him towards Loudon Hill. “Captain Grahame and his officers eat their breakfast that day at the principal inn, Strathaven, then kept by James Young, writer, innkeeper, and baron-bailie of Avendale, known in that district by the name of _Scribbie Young_. The house which he then occupied stood opposite the entry into the churchyard, and, from its having an upper room or second storey in the one end, with an outside stair of a curious construction, was denominated ‘the tower.’[27] Having been informed at Strathaven that the Conventicle was not to meet that day, Captain Grahame set out towards Glasgow with his prisoners. But, upon obtaining more correct information about a mile north of Strathaven, he turned round towards Loudon Hill, by the way of Letham. On being told at Braeburn that the Covenanters were in great force, he said that he had eleven score of good guns under his command, and would soon disperse the Whigs. “Soon after worship had commenced, the Covenanters were informed, by an express from their friends at Hamilton, as well as by the watches they had placed, that the military were approaching them; and they resolved to fight the troops, in order, if possible, to relieve the prisoners, or, to use the words of their historian, Dr. Wodrow, to ‘oppose the hellish fury of their persecutors.’ Their whole force consisted of about 50 horsemen, ill-provided with arms, 50 footmen with muskets, and about 150 more with halberts and forks. Mr. Hamilton took the chief command, and David Hackston, Henry Hall, John Balfour, Robert Fleming, William Cleland, John Loudon, and John Brown, acted as subalterns under Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Wilson says, ‘Hamilton gave out the word that no quarter should be given to the enemy.’ The Covenanters did not wait the arrival of the military, who could not have reached them but by a circuitous route; neither did they take shelter in the mosses that lay near, and into which the cavalry could not have followed them; but they advanced eastward about two miles, singing psalms all the way.