The officiating priest at the kirk of Saint Mary of the Lowes had been particularly active in this part of his commission. The smallest number could not be convened for the purposes of public devotion—two or three stragglers could not be seen crossing the country, but information was instantly sent to Clavers, or some one of his officers; and, at the same time, these devotional meetings were always described to be of the most atrocious and rebellious nature. The whigs became grievously incensed against this ecclesiastic, for, in the bleakest mountain of their native land, they could not enjoy a lair in common with the foxes and the wild–goats in peace, nor worship their God without annoyance in the dens and caves of the earth. Their conventicles, though held in places ever so remote, were broke in upon and dispersed by armed troops, and their ministers and brethren carried away to prisons, to banishment, and to death. They waxed desperate; and what will not desperate men do? They way–laid, and seized upon one of the priest’s emissaries by night, a young female, who was running on a message to Grierson of Lag. Overcome with fear at being in custody of such frightful–looking fellows, with their sallow cheeks and long beards, she confessed the whole, and gave up her dispatches. They were of the most aggravated nature. Forthwith two or three of the most hardy of the whigs, without the concurrence or knowledge of their brethren, posted straight to the Virgin’s chapel that very night, shot the chaplain, and buried him at a small distance from his own little solitary mansion; at the same time giving out to the country, that he was a sorcerer, an adulterer, and a character every way evil. His name has accordingly been handed down to posterity as a most horrid necromancer. This was a rash and unpremeditated act; and, as might well have been foreseen, the cure proved worse than the disease. It brought the armed troops upon them both from the east and the west. Dundee came to Traquair, and stationed companies of troops in a line across the country. The Laird of Lag placed a body of men in the narrowest pass of Moffatdale, in the only path by which these mountains are accessible. Thus all communication was cut off between the mountain–men and the western counties; for every one who went or came by that way, these soldiers took prisoner, searched, and examined; and one lad, who was coming from Moffat, carrying more bread than they thought he could well account for, they shot dead on the spot just as he had dropt on his knees to pray.