Drummelzier, being one of the Committee of Public Safety, was absent from home, to which he did not return for several days, to the great perplexity of Katharine, who was in the utmost distress about her father, as well as her affairs at home. She was obliged, however, to wait with patience, as no one knew in what part of the country he was. The housekeeper, who was an Englishwoman, was kind to her, and bade her not be afraid, for that their master had much more power with the government than Claverhouse, the one being a moving spring, and the other only a tool.
Drummelzier was a bold and determined royalist--was, indeed, in high trust with the Privy-council, and had it in his power to have harassed the country as much, and more, than the greater part of those who did so; but, fortunately for that south-east division of Scotland, he was a gentleman of high honour, benevolence, and suavity of manners, and detested any act of injustice or oppression. He by these means contributed materially to the keeping of a large division of Scotland (though as whiggishly inclined as any part of it, Ayrshire perhaps excepted,) in perfect peace. The very first dash that Clavers made among the Covenanters, while he was as yet only a captain of a company, was into this division of the country over which Drummelzier was appointed to keep an eye, and it was in consequence of his intrepid and decided behaviour there, that the Duke of York interested himself in his behalf, and procured him the command of a troop of horse. At a place called Bewly, on the confines of Roxburghshire, he surprised a large conventicle about eleven o'clock on a Sabbath morning. Having but a small band, as soon as he appeared a crowd of the hearers gathered round the preacher to defend him, or to further his escape. Clavers burst in upon them like a torrent; killed and wounded upwards of an hundred; took the preacher prisoner, and all such of the hearers as were the most respectable in appearance. He would have detained many more had his force been sufficient for his designs, for that very day, about five o'clock in the afternoon, he surprised another numerous conventicle, at a place called Helmburn-Linn, in Selkirkshire, where he acted over the same scene that he had done in the morning. The people, it is true, did not get time to rally round their pastor as at the former place, for the first intelligence they had of his approach was from a volley of musketry among them from the top of the linn, which took too sure effect.