ONE of the most touching incidents recorded in connection with Covenanting times is the story of Alexander Peden’s visit to Richard Cameron’s grave. The story has been embalmed in verse by Mrs. Menteath, a lady who has done much by her gifted pen to keep green the memory of the Covenanters. It will be found in another page of this issue. It was on the 20th July, 1680, that Richard Cameron, known as the Lion of the Covenant, with a handful of followers encountered the dragoons of Earlshall, one of the bitter persecutors of the Covenanters at Airsmoss. The little band met the fierce onset of the Dragoons, and Richard Cameron fell praying: “Lord, spare the green and take the ripe!” His head and hands were cut off and taken to his father, then a prisoner in Edinburgh for the good cause. He was asked if he knew them and he touchingly replied: “I know them, I know them! They are my son’s, my dear son’s! It is the Lord: good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy follow us all our days.” Richard Cameron got his heavenly crown early in youth for at the date of his death he would probably not be more than thirty. Before the contest began Richard turned to his brother, Michael, saying: “Michael, come, let us fight it out to the last! For this is the day I have longed for, and the death that I have prayed for, to die fighting against our Lord’s enemies; and this is the day we will get the crown.” Both Richard and Michael, with seven others, fell in the conflict. His body was buried at Airsmoss where he fell, while his hands were taken to Edinburgh to be fixed on the Netherbow.
When the righteous had fallen, and the combat was ended,
A chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended;
Its drivers were angels on horses of whiteness,
And its burning wheels turned on axles of brightness.
The incident referred to in the poem printed in this issue is one of the picturesque happenings in the wanderings of Alexander Peden and which was referred to in the recent article on this worthy Covenanter which appeared in our pages.