Human Connections 2

This drawing of the road towards Galloway by Criffell was the work of Joseph Pennell.   Pennell was an American artist, who did the illustrations for the book "Raiderland" by S R Crockett.    Crockett was a minister of the Church and writer, his most famous story being the adventure "The Raiders", set in his beloved Galloway.     His work was associated with the kale-yard genre, and was a bit varied in its quality.    He died in Avignon in 1914.    

Although he was buried (eventually - the War causing problems) back in his home kirkyard of Balmaghie, his wife, Ruth Crockett is buried in Peebles Cemetery.   She lies close to the grave of Professor John Burleigh, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, whose seminal work 'A Church History of Scotland' set out in detail much of the troubled story of rival branches of the Church in places like Galloway.    The hills could tell great stories of daring secret services of worship, hunted down and destroyed as they gathered on the moors.   These same stories were the ones on which S R Crockett grew up.   And on his memorial are engraved words dedicated to him by R L Stevenson.

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying, 
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now, 
here about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, 
My heart remembers how!

Those same moors were the ones so finely captured by Joseph Pennell from Philadelphia.       And so it goes on.....