hbourhood from village to village and from moor to moor,
their preachers exhorted and harangued as much against each other as
against Pope or Prelate, and their leaders quarrelled as though there
were not a King's soldier in all Scotland, nor Claverhouse within a
dozen miles of them eager for the moment to strike. There was no lack of
arms among them, and their numbers seem at this time to have been not
far short of eight thousand. But no men of any position or influence in
the country had joined them with the exception of Hamilton; and his
authority, whether the story of his cowardice at Glasgow be true or not,
was not what it had been at Rutherglen and Drumclog. The preachers
seemed to have exercised the only control over the rabble; and such
control, as was natural, seems rarely to have lasted beyond the length
of their sermons, which, indeed, were not commonly short. As the
Covenanters (to keep to the distinguishing name I have chosen) were an
extreme section of the Presbyterians, so now the Covenanters themselves
were divided into a moderate and an extreme party. The chiefs of the
former, or Erastians as their opponents scornfully termed them, were
John Welsh and David Hume. Of Hume there is no particular account, but
Welsh we have met before. Though he had been under denunciation as a
rebel ever since the Pentland rising (in which he had, indeed, borne no
part), he had never given his voice for war; and, though assuredly
neither a coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active share in
the proceedings of his more tumultuous brethren. His plan, and the plan
of the few who at that time and place were on his side, was temperate
and reasonable. They asked for no more than they were willing to give.
Against the King, his government, and his bishops they had no quarrel,
if only they were suffered to worship God after their own fashion.
Though they themselves had not accepted the Indulgence, they were not
disposed to be unduly severe with those who had. In a word, they were
willing to extend to all men the liberty they demanded for themselves.
Had there been more of this wise mind among the Covenanters--among the
Presbyterians, one may indeed say--though it is hardly possible to
believe that Lauderdale and his crew would not still have found occasion
for oppression, it would be much easier to find sympathy for the
oppressed.

On the other side, Hamilton himself, Donald Cargill, and Thomas Douglas
were the most con