Peden's Grave
"A man of God, Peden the Prophet was his name. Ye'll have heard tell of Prophet Peden. There was never the wale of him sinsyne, and it's a question wi' mony if there was ever his like afore. He was wild 's a peat-hag, fearsome to look at, fearsome to hear, his face like the day of judgment. The voice of him was like a solan's and dinneled in folk's lugs, and the words of him like coals of fire."—R. L. S.
WHEN Peden the Prophet, the outlaw, was dying,
He said to the friends that were weeping at hand:
"Ye'll tak' me to Ayremoss; I fain would be lying
Where Ritchie is resting, at peace in the land.
But when and wherever my grave may be maken,
My weary auld body will find but small rest,
By the force of the wicked my bones will be taken
To swing on a gibbet, the enemy's jest."
The Boswells of Auchinleck, blessing befall them,
Did give him entombment within their own vault:
By night and in secret, with much to appal them,
Of outrage and insult, and mocking assault.
For forty days later, a rabble unruly,
Of poor hired fellows, the soldiers of Sorn,
Broke open the coffin, a sacrilege truly,
And from the dead body the shroud sheet was torn!
They buried him then at the foot of the gallows,
The grave of the felon, high up on the steep,
Mid thistles and nettles, and docken and mallows,
They laid down great Peden the Prophet to sleep.
But mark you, his people, his own loving people,
The people of Cumnock, they followed him still:
They left the kirkyard in the shade of the steeple,
And the graveyard is now on the dark Gallows Hill!
The hill once dishonoured is now their "God's Acre,"
The people have followed their minister there,
And roses and white thorn breathe praise to their Maker
Where once stood the gallows, all grimly and bare.
And sweet is the spot where the Prophet is biding
In the "lap o' the mantle" his Master has cast,
For the ban, the barred pulpit, the prison, and hiding
Have all been forgotten in peace at the last.