PREFATORY NOTE.
———
James Hyslop, author of the following Poem, was born in the parish of Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire. He was for some time a shepherd in the parish of Muirkirk, hence was known as “the Muirkirk Shepherd.” He was the author of another highly popular poem, beginning, “In a dream of the night I was wafted away.” This gifted peasant died many years ago, in sailing to a foreign land.
The present poem was written on the murder of John Brown of Priesthill, Muirkirk, Ayrshire, who on the first day of May, 1685, was shot to death at the door of his own cottage, as narrated in the poem. John Brown’s small possession is situated in one of the most lonely moors in Scotland; not a house or field being in sight of it. But even there the blood-thirsty underlings of an infamous Government could not permit the inoffensive man of 58 years of age to live. To this hour many a pilgrim, with a swelling heart, visits the lonely grave and modest monument of “the Christian Carrier.”
The engraving represents the monument erected in 1826. Inside the enclosure is the original flat grave stone, on which is the following inscription:—
“Here lies the body of John Brown, martyr, who was Murdered in this place by Graham of Claverhouse for his testimony to the Covenanted work of Reformation, because he durst not own the authority of the then tyrant destroying the same, who died the first day of May A.D. 1685, and of his age 58.”
“In death’s cold bed the dusty part here lyes
O f one who did the earth as dust despise.
H ere in this place from earth he took departure:
N ow he has got the garland of the martyr.
B utchered by Claverse and his bloody band,
R aging most ravenously over all the land,
O nly for owning Christ’s supremacy.
W ickedly wronged by encroaching tyranny,
N othing how near soever he too good
Esteemed, nor dear for any truth his blood.”
THE CAMERONIAN’S VISION.
From the climes and the seas of the fair sunny south,
I return’d to the gray hills and green glens of youth:
By mountain graves musing on days long gone past,
A dream-like illusion around me was cast.
