Justice was being done, but it would not be perfect till Claverhouse suffered the penalty of his crimes. It had been the hope of many a dour Covenanter, infuriated by the wrongs of his friends, if not his own, to strike down Claverhouse and avenge the sufferings of God's people. Satan had protected his own, but now the man of blood was given into their hands. Surely it was the doing of the Lord that Dundee should have left Dudhope, where he was in stronghold, and come up to Edinburgh, where his friends were few. That he should go at large upon the streets and take his seat in the Convention, that he should dare to plot against William and lift a hand for James in this day of triumph, was his last stroke of insolence--the drop which filled his cup to overflowing. He had come to Edinburgh, to which he had sent many a martyr of the Covenant, and where he had seen Henry Pollock die for Christ's crown and the Scots kirk. Behold! was it not a sign, and was it not the will of the Lord that in this high place, where godly men had been murdered by him, his blood should be spilled as an offering unto the Lord?
This was what the hillmen were saying among themselves as they gathered in their meetings and communed together in their lodgings. They were not given to public vaporing, and were much readier to strike than to speak, but when there are so many, and their hearts are so hot, a secret cannot be easily kept. And Grimond, who concealed much shrewdness behind a stolid face--which is the way with Scots peasants--caught some suspicious words as two unmistakable Covenanters passed him in the high street. If mischief was brewing for his master, it was his business to find it out and take a hand in the affair. He followed the pair as if he were a countryman gaping at the sights of the town and the stir of those days, when armed men passed on every side and the air was thick with rumors. When the Covenanters, after glancing round, plunged down a dark entry and into an obscure tavern, Grimond, after a pause, followed cautiously, assuming as best he could--and not unsuccessfully--the manner of a man from the west.
The outer room was empty when he entered, and he was careful when he got his measure of ale to bend his head over it for at least five minutes by way of grace. The woman, who had glanced sharply at him on entry, was satisfied by this sign of godliness, and left him in a dark corner, from which he saw one after another of the saints pass into an inner chamber. Between the two rooms there was a wooden partition, and through a crack in the boarding Grimond was able to see and hear what was going on. It was characteristic of the men that they opened their conference of assassination with prayer, in which the sorrows of the past were mentioned with a certain pathos, and thanks given for the great deliverance which had been wrought. Then they asked wisdom and strength to finish the Lord's work, and to rid the land of the chief of the Amalekites, after which they made their plan. Although Grimond could not catch everything that was said, he gathered clearly that when Claverhouse left his lodging to attend the Convention on the morning of the fifteenth of March, they would be waiting in the narrow way, as if talking with friends, and would slay the persecutor before he could summon help. When it was agreed who should be present, and what each one should do, they closed their meeting, as they had opened it, with prayer. One of them glanced suspiciously round the kitchen as he passed through, but saw no man, for Grimond had quietly departed. He knew his master's obstinate temper and reckless courage, and was afraid if he told him of the plot that he would give no heed, or trust to his own sword. "We'll run no risks," said Grimond to himself, and next morning a dozen troopers of Claverhouse's regiment guarded the entry to his lodging, and a dozen more were scattered handily about the street. They followed him to the Convention and waited till he returned. That was how Claverhouse lived to fight the battle of Killiecrankie, but till that day came he had never been so near death as in that narrow way of Edinburgh.