they were married there was a moment's stillness,
during which the bridegroom kissed the bride, and then Lady Cochrane
spoke again. "Ye have gone your own way and done your own will, John
Graham and Jean Cochrane, and the curse of God's kirk and of a mother
goes with you. The veil is lifted from before my eyes, and I prophesy
that neither the bridegroom nor the bride will die in their beds.
There are those here present who will witness one day that I have
spoken true."

Claverhouse led his bride to the wing of the castle, where she lived,
and from which she could look down on the courtyard. At the door of
her room he kissed her again and bade her good-by. "This is what ye
have got, Jean, by marrying me," and his smile was dashed with
sadness. Two minutes later he rode out from the courtyard of the
castle to hunt the people of Lady Cochrane's faith, while her daughter
and his bride waved him God speed from her window.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

ONE FEARLESS MAN

Above the town of Dundee, and built to command the place, stood, at the
date of our tale, Dudhope Castle, a good specimen of Scots architecture,
which in its severity and strength is, like architecture everywhere, the
physical incarnation of national creed and character. The hardness of
Dudhope was softened in those days by what was not usual in the case of
keeps and other warlike buildings, for Dudhope was set in the midst of
sloping fields where cattle browsed, and had also round it rising
plantations of wood. Before the castle there was a terrace, and from
it one looked down upon the little town, nestling under the shelter of
the castle, and across the Firth of Tay to Fifeshire, where so much
Scots history had been made. It was to Dudhope Claverhouse brought his
bride, after that stormy honeymoon which she had to spend under the shadow
of her mother's hot displeasure in Paisley Castle, and he occupied
with the weary hunt of Covenanters up and down the West Country. Their
wedding day was the 10th of June, but it was not till August that
Claverhouse and his wife came home to Dudhope. Since then four years have
passed, during which the monotony of his duty in hunting Covenanters had
been relieved by the office of Provost of Dundee, in which it is said he
ruled severely, and the sameness of Jean's life at Dudhope by a visit
to the Court of London, where she produced a vast impression, and was
said to have been adored in the highest quarter. There were ho