Book 3 Chapter 1 One Fearless Man

It might be her imagination, but it seemed as if his fellow officers and other friends, whom she met from time to time, were not at ease with her. She was angry when they refrained from their customary frank expressions about her mother's party, just as she would have been angry if they had said the things they were accustomed to say in her presence. Claverhouse assured her on those happy days when he was living at Dudhope, and when they could be lovers among the woods there, as they had been in the pleasaunce at Paisley Castle, that he never regretted his choice, and that she was the inspiration of his life. It was pleasant to hear him repeat his love vows, with a passion as hot and words as moving as in the days of their courtship, and the very contrast between his unbending severity as a soldier and his grace as a lover made him the more fascinating to a woman who was herself of the lioness breed. All the same, she could not forget that Claverhouse would have done better for himself if he had married into one of the great Scots houses of his own party--and there were few in which he would not have been welcome--and that indeed he could not have done much worse for his future than in marrying her. It was a day of keen rivalry among the Royalists, and a more unprincipled and disreputable gang than the king's Scots ministers could not be found in any land; indeed Claverhouse was the only man of honor amongst them. His battle to hold his own and achieve his legitimate ambition was very hard, and certainly he needed no handicap. Jean Graham was haunted with the reflection that Claverhouse's wife, instead of being a help, was a hindrance to her husband, and that if it were not for the burden of her Covenanting name, he would have climbed easily to the highest place. Nor could she relish the change of attitude of the common people towards her, and the difference in atmosphere between Paisley and Dundee.