Page:Life of the martyr, John Brown, of Priesthill, in the parish of Muirkirk, Ayrshire (3).pdf/23

23 Nothing how near so ever be to good Esteem'd, nor dear for any truth his blood.

It has not been exactly ascertaied how long the widow lived after her husband, nor is the present state of their prosterity known to the winter; but it is certain, that eight months after her husband's death, Isabell mingled her tears with those of David Steel's wife, and had her wounds opened afresh by that worthy man's untimely end. The enemy came on a sudden to Cummerhead where he lived, and while he was flying before them to a flow moss, where no trooper could follow, they called him back, assuring him that they did not intend his hurt. In confidence of which, he sat down on a little knoll, on which a kiln stood, to look at the soldiers passing, and while doing so, Lieutenant Crichton, who commanded the troop, and who came up in the rear; shot him through the heart, after that he had been treacherously promised safety. His wife saw him all the while, and was the first that got to the bloody corpse, and while she gently pressed down the eyelids on the fixed face, she said. with great composure, The archers have shot at thee, but they could not reach thy soul-it has escaped like a dove, far away, and is at rest.' She then, clapping her hands together and looking up with an eye that pierced the heavens, said, Lord give strength unto thine handmaid, that will prove she has waited for thee even in the way of thy judgements" David Steel lies buried in Lesmahago churchyard. On his grave is a stone with this epitaph,-

David a shepherd first, and then Advanced to be king of men, Had of graces in this quarter, This heir, a wand'rer, now a martyr!