He  is  chief  and  monarch  of  those  wandering  heralds  of  God  to
whom,  in  that  era  of  death  and  silence,  the  country  owed  the
deepest  debt.  For  three-and-twenty  years  the  mountains  and
moors  were  his  haunts ;  we  pant  in  vain  after  his  unresting
footsteps.  If  we  look  out  from  the  vantage-ground  of  his
native  county  of  Ayr,  sometimes  he  is  north  in  Lanarkshire  or
Kenfrewshire  or  Linlithgowshire,  sometimes  south  in  Dumfries
or  Kirkcudbright  or  Wigtown.     Here  he  is  remembered  by  a


378  MEN  OF  THE  COVENANT

grotto,  which  is  Peden's  Cave :  and  here  by  a  rock,  which  is
Peden's  Pulpit ;  and  there  by  a  shaded  hollow,  which  is  Peden's
Bed.  One  of  his  friends,  James  Nisbet  of  Hardhill,  son  of  him
round  whom  such  agonies  gathered  in  the  Killing  Time,  has
drawn  up  an  inventory  of  his  own  retreats,  the  scenes  of  his
dangers  and  deliverances ;  and  the  minister's  catalogue  would
have  been  longer  still.  "  The  Lord's  watchful  providence,"
Nisbet  narrates,  "  prevented  me  losing  my  life  at  all  the
following  places — namely,  when  amongst  the  hurry  of  the
enemy's  cruel  searches  at  my  father's  house  of  Hardhill,  at  the
Bennet  Hill,  at  Gelt  Hill,  at  Garclagh  Hill,  at  the  Castle  of
Kyle,  at  Dornal,  at  Corsancone  Hill,  at  Greenock  Mains,  at
Cargilloch,  at  Wallaceton,  at  Cubb's  Craigs,  at  Barlonochie,
at  the  Heilsh  Wood,  at  Hairstocks,  at  Carnduff  Hill,  at  Friar-
midden  Moor,  at  Spango  Glen,  at  Hoggan  Burn,  at  Cairnscamb,
at  Leadloch,  at  Crossford,  at  Middton,  at  Burnhouse,  and  at
Loudoun  Wood."  There  is  a  wealth  of  movement  and  risk  and
rescue  in  a  Covenanting  hero's  life.
