KILCHURN CASTLE.KILCHURN CASTLE.
Two longer excursions one must make from Oban; to Loch Awe, to Glencoe. Each is possible in a day, and yet a night in Glencoe is almost imperative if one would be played upon by its full tragic compass; and a lifetime of summers would not exhaust Loch Awe.
The Loch I would visit; because of its beauty; and because of Kilchurn Castle, which is picturesque in fact as well as in picture, on its densely wooded island with its broken outline lying against the farther mountain; because of Ardchonnel Castle, ivy covered, and "it's a far cry to Loch Awe"; because of Fraoch-Eilean (isle of heather) which is the island of Ossian's Hesperides; and because,capitally because, Innishail is the island where Philip Gilbert Hamerton established his camp through so many summers and through a number of Scottish winters.
One must belong, oh, quite to "another generation," to admit any debt of instruction or pleasure to Philip Gilbert Hamerton. I do not think that this generation knows him, hardly as a name. But when I was young, collegiately young, Hamerton was an authority on life and art, and a preceptor of beauty. And, if one read "The Intellectual Life," then, of course, one read the rest of him. And so, one came to Loch Awe before one came to Loch Awe.
To the lake I went quite shamelessly on train. But repenting half way, over-awed by Ben Cruachan, as who should not be, I left the train at the "platform" and won the memory on foot. The mountain looks as high and as mighty as a Rocky, and the white foaming threads of falls, hundreds of feet high, dashed down the sides in a true "Rocky" splendour; like those on the Cut bank or the Piegan trails in Glacier Park, yet not quite so high. I did not climb Ben Cruachan to look on the Atlantic—but I have not made my last journey to Scotland. On foot and alone, I threaded "the dark pass of Brandir," and felt in my blood and bone thatsomething in me ancestral had been there before. Perhaps we inherit where we hero-worship. In any event, Sir William Wallace went through this defile in 1300, and King Robert Bruce in 1310, with his faithful friend Sir James Douglass, fighting John of Lorn (the dead are still heaped beneath these gray cairns), and going on to take Dunstaffnage. Sir Walter Scott came here when he sought environ for "The Highland Widow."
On one side is the sheer cliff which guards the foot of Ben Cruachan. On the other the rapid awesome dash of the River Awe. "You will not find a scene more impressive than the Brandir Pass, where the black narrowing water moves noiselessly at midnight between its barren precipices, or ripples against them when the wind wails through its gates of war."
In the Loch lies the island of Innishail, still green, and not less solitary than when Hamerton entertained travelers, unaware of his identity. It still carries old gravestones, for islands in the far days were the only safe places, safe for the dead as for the living; war and ravage would pass them by. Throughout this western land you will find island graveyards, and the procession of quiet boats carrying the dead to their rest must have beena better expression than can be had by land.
From here one sees Ben Cruachan to advantage, even as one saw it in 1859 with Hamerton.
"At this moment the picture is perfect. The sky has become an exquisite pearly green, full of gradations. There is only one lonely cloud, and that has come exactly where it ought. It has risen just beyond the summit of Cruachan and pauses there like a golden disk behind a saint's white head. But this cloud is rose-colour, with a swift gradation to dark purple-gray. Its under edge is sharply smoothed into a clearly-cut curve by the wind; the upper edge floats and melts away gradually in the pale green air. The cloud is shaped rather like a dolphin with its tail hidden behind the hill. The sunlight on all the hill, but especially towards the summit, has turned from mere warm light to a delicate, definite rose-colour; the shadows are more intensely azure, the sky of a deeper green. The lake, which is perfectly calm, reflects and reverberates all this magnificence. The islands, however, are below the level of the sunshine, and lie dark and cold, the deep green Scotch firs on the Black Isles telling strongly against the snows of Cruachan."
It was even as Hamerton had told me so longago, a trifle different in July from what he saw it in December, but equal in magnificence, and the outlines had not changed in a half-century.
And so I did not hesitate to go with Hamerton to Glencoe, lovely and lonely and most terrible glen. There is such a thing as being haunted, the dead do cry for revenge, the evil that men do does live after them.
It is a wide valley, yet closed in by great granite precipices, for safe guarding against betrayal. The first section of the strath is calm enough, human, green, habitable, with Loch Leven, a branch of Loch Etive, sparkling in the sun. The second wide opening is terrible as massacre, not green, very stern, and wild as Scottish nature, human or not, can become. Even the little clachan of the Macdonalds seems not to welcome the world except on suspicion. And that murder, that assassination (February 14, 1692) when William was king—William who might have been "great" except for Boyne and Glencoe—still fills the memory.
Hamerton painted the picture—"In the vastness of the valley, over the dim, silver stream that flowed away into its infinite distance, brooded a heavy cloud, stained with a crimson hue, as if the innocent blood shed there rose from the earth even yet, to bear witness againstthe assassins who gave the name of Glen Coe such power over the hearts of men. For so long as history shall be read, and treachery hated, that name, Glen Coe, shall thrill mankind with undiminished horror! The story is a century old now (1859). The human race has heard it talked of for over a hundred years. But the tale is as fresh in its fearful interest as the latest murder in the newspapers."
Yet, a half century still later, I have heard those who declared Glencoe lovely and not terrible. No doubt the generation does not read history and does not feel story.
We did not go on to the King's House, built in the days of King William, when roads were being driven through the Highlands in order that they might be held to a doubtful Stewart sovereignty. For we had read how Hamerton thought it more than enough to drink a glass here, and we doubted not he had read of the trials of Dorothy Wordsworth, sheets that must be dried for hours before the beds could be made, the one egg for breakfast, and—could we have found that china cup that Dorothy forgot? Rather, we chose to return down the lake side for another look at the red roofs of the home of Lord Strathcona, that wizard of the nineteenth century, who had left Scotland withonly his wits and returned from America with his millions and a title.
There is no pilgrimage which can be taken to any shrine excelling pilgrimage to Iona. And all the pilgrim way is lined with memory and paved with beauty.
On almost every promontory stand ruined castles, not so frequent as the watch towers on the Mediterranean heights, and therefore not so monotonous. One knows that each of these, as of those, has had its history, and here one ponders that history, perhaps tries to remember it, or, tries to evoke it. Dunolly which we visited in the day's drift from Oban stood up on the right with the city still in view. But it is when the Firth opens into the Sound that the glory of the water-world of the West comes on you.
The Sound of Mull is, so Sir Walter has said, "the most striking water of the Hebrides." It is very lovely in this shell-pink light of early morning, it could not have looked lovelier when Sir Walter estimated it. The hills begin to stand boldly forth, for the gray mists of the morning are rising. It is to be a fine day,which here because of its exception means a brilliant sun-stricken day, and all things clear as geography. But, at least once, one should see things one wishes always to keep as material for remembrance and for imagination, not in the mist dimly, but face to face like this. Or, as the Maid of Lorn in Ardtornish, when she was led
"To where a turret's airy headSlender and steep and battled round,O'erlooked, dark Mull! thy mighty Sound.Where thwarting tides, with mingled roarPart thy swarth hills from Morven's shore."
AROS CASTLE.AROS CASTLE.
On the left of Mull stands the grim Castle of Duart on its high rock, on the right on Morven the Castle of Ardtornish, and Aros a little farther on, and Kinlochalive at the top of the bay of the Loch—mighty were these lords of the islands, and most mighty the Lord of the Isles.
Perhaps—it has been suggested—Sir Walter overstated the might of the Lord, the grandeur of the islands, the splendour of those thirteenth century days. It depends on what light one views them in.
Tobermory is the capital of Mull, and is a place of some resort. Like all these little capitals it is set in the wilderness world, and whatone would like best to do instead of sailing past them is to stay with them and go far into the backward. Perhaps traversing Mull as did McLeod of Dare when he hunted so royally—and in such a moonstruck way; or David Balfour when he was shipwrecked and walked through Mull; or the Pennells when they sought to walk through and did not take pleasure in it. It is the pilgrims who won their goal one chooses to remember—not the defeated Pennells. And here—I am leaving Mull and Tobermory behind me, perhaps for always.
Suddenly one sweeps out into the Atlantic! The stretch is wide, oceanic, although far and away there are islands, black lines thickening here and there the horizon edge. The sea is exquisitely, deeply blue, like the Mediterranean at its best.
One passes Ardnamurchan point, the most westerly point of the mainland of Great Britain, "Cape of the Great Seas"; how one loves the poetic grandeur, the sufficing bigness of these names, and the faith, and the limitations back of them; as though there should never be a greater world with greater seas and mountains in the greater West. To the south the boat passes Trehinish isles, black gems lying on the sea.
ENTRANCE TO FINGAL'S CAVE.ENTRANCE TO FINGAL'S CAVE.
Far out on the horizon lie Col and Tiree, low clouds in the line. "Col," I heard the professorial people—from Oberlin—speak the name. "Col! So that is Col!" they said to each other, "so that is Col off there!" "Col," I said to myself, "so that is Col." And we all became related through the great Doctor.
One is bound to Staffa, incidentally, on the way to Iona, and for the sake of Mendelssohn. Always afterward one is bound to Staffa because of itself. If only one could have Staffa for one's self. But there are always fellow travelers, there is no inn, no habitation here, not even a shepherd's shieling, visible from the water. There are a few sheep, a shepherd, and so there must be a shieling. To be marooned here—was it here Stevenson understudied for Bill Gunn, and "cheese, toasted mostly"?
The cave is truly wonderful, a superb cathedral nave, with dark basaltic columns lifted in marvelous regularity, and arches lifting over with groining the hand of God.
"Nature herself it seemed would raiseA minster to her Maker's praise."
The broken surfaces of the walls are in mosaic with green sea grasses and gleaminglimpets, and the floor is a shifting thing of surging waves. The ocean thunders through the narrow gate as it has done since the time Staffa began, and since Mendelssohn, a mighty organ surge, like the "Overture to Fingal's Cave," and yet, more than that. To be here alone, to be the shepherd of Staffa, and come to this cathedral, with the might and mystery of the night about, and the winds and the sea making symphony—life will always hold many things in possibility, which cannot die!
From the top of Staffa, if one flees the passengers a moment, may be seen the islands lying about whose names are romance, Trehinish, and Inchkenneth on Mull and Skerryvore, "the noblest of all deep sea light," a mere speck on the far Atlantic—what vigils the man must have in the house of light built by Stevenson's father; and on to the far north and Skye; and to the near south and Iona.
"Where is Duncan's body?Carried to Colme-kill,The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,And guardian of their bones."
Very definite was Shakespeare about these things. A more modern antiquarian would have doubted, and sent us wandering from pillar to post of royal burial places. But not theman who created what he declared. Icolmkill—Iona—certainly.
That such a little island could have had such a large history. It is so small a place, yet a beautiful island withal, and with its cathedral, now alas, "restored" and "reformed," and all its far sounding memories of Columba.
He came up from the South as we came down from the North, but his voyage was across the wide seas to unknown goals; while we have the advantage of having come after him to Iona. And yet, to Columba, valiant adventuring saint, Iona nor any other place was unknown goal. There was to him but one purpose in life, one goal. And he found it everywhere.
It was a large life and simple, austere but with unlimited horizon, that Columba lived here. It is a small exquisite life that is lived here to-day. Or, perhaps my belief in its proportion and perfection came because of contact with a certain two persons, man and woman, who had taken this life to themselves. While being practical in that they sold exquisite wares, in silver and gold and brass and bronze, each article, large or little, carrying some Ionian insignia, still they must have a very beautiful life, ever making things of beauty out of the historic heritage of this island. It was a large accumulation of jeweled hints they discovered here, in the ornamentations of the stones of Iona. They have used them to very lovely ends. And they have lived the life of memories and of the keen sea air.
One may have forty minutes, or day after day in Iona. And, of course, the reward and the intimacy is in proportion. It is a quiet fragment of land, the little village with its white-washed cottages in prim lines, and its simple cotters, perhaps a little more sophisticated than those of other western islands because of their continuing contact with a curious world; and yet these men and women and serious children live here the year round, and in winter there is no world, and the Atlantic thunders on the little land as though one beat of the wave would carry all into the abyss, or smashes on the rough granite coast of Mull across the strait.
The western shore of the island is cruel, even on a summer day. And if the "merry men" ran their violent ways on the shore of Mull, there are other Merry Men just as merry, just as lurking. As McLeod of Dare saw it—
"Could anything have been more beautiful than this magnificent scene ... the wildly rushing seas, coming thunderingly on the rocks, or springing so high in the air that the snow-white foam showed black against the glare of the sky; the near islands gleaming with a touch of brown on their sunward side; the Dutchman's Cap with its long brim and conical center, and Lunga also like a cap with a shorter brim and a higher peak in front, becoming a trifle blue. And then Col and Tiree lying like a pale strip on the far horizon; while far away in the north the mountains of Rum and Skye were faint and spectral in the haze of sunlight. Then the wild coast around, with its splendid masses of granite; and its spare grass a brown-green in the warm sun, and its bays of silver sand; and its sea birds whiter than the clouds that came sailing over the blue."
On many of these western islands, and the northern, and it is said particularly on the far northern Shetlands, there are some dark somber faces remaining over from the Armada. The sea has never been kind; it breaks the rocks, it breaks men.
There are low-lying hills, the chief is Dun I, there are pasture lands, and still there are fields of wheat and clover. Just before he died, Columba was carried out to see the men at work in the fields. No doubt he lifted his eyes and looked around, on his little island, and the great sea, and the great world beyond. No doubt hewished he might live longer and labour farther. St. Columba who carried the Gospel and his gentle Irish gospel from the sixth century of Ireland into the far North until it swung round and met in Durham and York the Gospel and the culture coming up from Rome; and that neither so polished nor so Christian. Yes, even Columba regretted leaving the world behind him, though he was going to the other world.
Yes, I am certain he regretted leaving the island world behind him. Did he not sing of his longing—
"Delightful would it be to me to be inUchd AiliunOn the pinnacle of a rock,That I might often seeThe face of the ocean;That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,Source of happiness;That I might hear the thunder of the crowding wavesUpon the rocks;At times at work without compulsion—That would be delightful;At times plucking dulse from the rocks;At times fishing."
Thirteen hundred years ago; and the song is undimmed, and the world has not faded. The Port of the Coracle on the far side is still open to boats adventuring across pleasant or perilousseas. The very rock on which Columba landed, the traveler seeking the subtle transubstantiation from the past may stand on. And there is the White Beach of the Monks, where the companions of Columba paced to and fro in those days and in this lovely land that seems too far away to be believed in.
CATHEDRAL OF IONA AND ST. MARTIN'S CROSS.CATHEDRAL OF IONA AND ST. MARTIN'S CROSS.
The entire island is the shrine of the Saint, and not only the cathedral of Iona. In truth this particular church dates from six hundred years later than Columba, six hundred years backward from us. The crosses that stand in the cemetery of St. Oran, St. Martin's and the Maclean, the only two left out of nearly four hundred, cannot date much farther back than this, or than "gentle Duncan." There is a long line of graves, each with its aged granite slab, of the kings, Norwegian and Irish and Scottish, of those early centuries. I do not remember that I saw the one that speaks of Duncan. But I do remember that the carvings were very curious and often very fascinating, the "pattern" intricate and intriguing.
Once the cathedral was a place of magic, an unroofed broken shrine, where the winds might wander in search of the past, and where the moonlight might shine through as lovely a casement, tracery as exquisite, as at fair Melrose.If the generations coming six hundred years after us are to know of St. Columba, and not to reproach us for our coöperation with time the vandal, these roofs, this protection, must be afforded. Still, the gate is so close locked to-day that even Joseph Pennell could not steal in, and so closely watched that no black lamb or ram or other hobgoblin could affright Miss Gertrude White or cause her to cease loving the daring McLeod of Dare.
Yet, if one resolves as did Boswell, to leave the close inspection to Dr. Johnson, and "to stroll among them at my ease, to take no trouble to investigate minutely, and only receive the general impression of solemn antiquity," one will come upon much that is of particular impression, like the carvings about and on the capitals, with the early grace of the later Italians; quite worth careful preserving. And here is the altar, and I doubt not at this very spot—church shrines continue in this steadfast Scotland—Columba knelt before the God whose worship he had brought over the seas, and was to carry still farther over land and seas. There may be one shrine in the Christian world more sacred. But not more than one. Dr. Johnson is still quite right—"The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain forceupon the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."
The storm did not come, although we waited three days for it. Nothing but calm in the island of Iona, and peace on the deep of the Atlantic; tender dawns, still high noons, twilights of soft visible gray that lasted over to the next morning; a land of hushed winds and audible sounds, the seas lying like glass.
Not even on a Sunday morning when in a coracle, or some such smaller boat than one usually cares to venture, perhaps a lug, whatever that may be, we accompanied the clergyman to the mainland of Mull, and watched the stern sad faces of these far away folk as they listened to a very simple sermon of an old simple story. I remembered that at Earraid, Robert Louis Stevenson had been interested in the religious services held for the workmen who were cutting stone for a lighthouse building by Thomas Stevenson. From these people religion will go very late, if at all. Surely men and women need what Columba brought hither, now as ever.
And because of David Balfour I walked a little way into Mull, which still must look as he saw it, for except for the roadway it looked as though I were the first who had ever venturedthat way since time and these rough granite heaps began.
"Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,Say, could that lad be I?Merry of soul he sailed on a dayOver the sea to Skye."Mull was astern, Rum on the port,Egg on the starboard bow;Glory of youth glowed in his soul:Where is that glory now?"Give me again all that was there,Give me the sun that shone!Give me the eyes, give me the soul,Give me the lad that's gone!"
A
ll the world goes to the Trossachs. Yet there are only two kinds of people who should go, and they are as widely separated as the poles; those who are content and able to take the Trossachs as a beautiful bit of the world, like any lake or mountain country which is unsung, and then they will not take it but merely look at it; and those who know the Trossachs as theirs, The Trossachs, who can repeat it all from—
"The stag at eve had drunk his fillWhere danced the moon on Monan's rill,And deep his midnight lair had madeIn lone Glenartney's hazel shade.
On to
"The chain of gold the king unstrungThe links o'er Malcolm's neck he flungThen gently drew the golden bandAnd laid the clasp in Ellen's hand."
Half knowledge is exasperating to those who have whole knowledge; and half love—halflove is maddening, should lead to massacre by those whose love is all in all.
I cannot remember when I did not know "The Lady of the Lake"—which, of course, is the Trossachs. It is as though I knew it when I first knew speech, lisped in numbers and the numbers came. It was the first grown-up book I ever owned, and I own the copy yet. It is not a first edition, this my first and only edition. I presume that in those far away days when it was given to me, "a Christmas gift"—I always chose to receive it from my Scottish grandmother, though she had been dead thirty years before I came—I might have had a first edition for a song; but the preciousness of first editions had not yet become a fetich. Since then I have looked with respect and affection on that impress of "1810." I have never looked on it with longing. So much better, that first edition of mine, an ordinary sage-green cloth-bound book, with ornamental black and gold title, such as the inartistic Eighties sent forth; I do like to note that the year of its imprint is the year of my possession. It has not even a gilt edge, I am pleased to state. The paper is creamy, the ink is not always clear. And because it went through one fire and flood, the pages have little brown ripples, magic marginal notes. There isnot a penciled margin in the whole volume. That, in a book owned by one who always reads with a pencil in hand, is beyond understanding! And yet it was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea. Memory was tremendously active then, not quite the memory of a Macaulay, but still one reading, or at least one and a half, was sufficient to thrust the rimes of these two-edged couplets into unsurrendering possession. Criticism was in abeyance; there is not even a mark among the notes. I cannot be certain that I read them. Who reads notes at the age of eight?
I remember how my acquaintance began with "The Lady of the Lake," even before I read it. In those days there was little literature for children, and there was prejudice against that which was provided. There was especial prejudice in my own household. I think my teacher in school may have shared it. If he were an adult he would read, ostensibly to us, but for himself, something he could tolerate. Yes, it was he; an exception in those days, for in the public schools men seldom taught in "the grades."
He must have been a young man, not more than nineteen or twenty, waiting to mature in his profession. And Scotch, as I think it now;not only because his name was Kennedy, but because of his Highland dark eyes and hair, and because of certain uncanny skill in mathematics—as I thought who had not even a moiety—and because, oh, very much because, of the splendid tussle he had—tulzie! that's the word—a very battle royal to my small terrified fascinated vision, there on the school-room floor, with the two Dempsey boys, who were much older than the rest of us; they must have been as old as fourteen! One merited the punishment and was getting it. The other, with clan loyalty, came to his rescue. And the Highlander, white to the lips, and eyes black-and-fire, handled them both.
Oh, it was royal understudy to the combat at Coilantogle ford—
"Ill fared it then with Roderick DhuWhen on the field his targe he threw."
To write a guide to the Trossachs—that has been done and done more than once; done with much minutiæ, with mathematics, with measurement; to-day it is possible to follow the stag at eve, and all the rest of it, in all its footsteps;to follow much more accurately than did even Sir Walter; to follow vastly more accurately than did James Fitz James.
For, in the first place, the world is not so stupendous a place as it was in the days of Fitz James, or of Sir Walter. The Rockies and the Andes have been sighted, if not charted, and beside them the Grampians look low enough. Yet, fortunately, the situation can never be "beside them." The most remembering traveler has crossed the seas and buried his megalomanian American memories, let it be hoped, in the depths of the Atlantic. Neither Rockies nor Andes carry so far or so rich memories. Sir Walter has never projected an imaginary Roderick Dhu or a King errant into any of the majesty or loveliness of those empty lakes and mountains. I can imagine in what spirit the Pennells came to Loch Lomond and declared that it "looked like any other lake." Dr. Johnson was quite right, sir. "Water is the same everywhere," to those who think water is water.
Of course the traveler should not come upon the land by way of Lomond. Fitz James came from Stirling. He came to subdue the Highlands. They were seething in revolt—for no other reason than that Highlanders so long as they were Highlanders had to seethe and revolt.And if we would subdue the Highlands or have them subdue us, we must follow the silver horn of the Knight of Snowdoun when he rode out of Stirling; to subdue, yes, and to adventure.
DUMBARTON CASTLE.DUMBARTON CASTLE.
Yet perhaps it is better to have possessed Scotland, en tour, and to go back to Stirling with Fitz James, as a captive, but bearing the golden ring—
"Ellen, thy hand—the ring is thine,Each guard and usher knows the sign."
So one leaves Glasgow, the unromantic, threading through its miles of prosperity and unbeauty, passing Dumbarton where Wallace was prisoner, passing the river Leven, which ought to interest us, for once its "pure stream" on his own confession laved the "youthful limbs" of Tobias Smollett, until the open country is reached and Loch Lomond swims into sight.
"By yon bonnie banks, and by yon bonnie braesWhere the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond,There me and my true love spent mony happy days,On the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond."
No, the Pennells might criticize "me and my true love." As for us, we mean to be romantic and sentimental and unashamed and ungrammatical. And spend mony days; Harry Lauder would spell and spend it, "money."
The lake opens wide and free in the lowland country of Balloch. At the left lies Glenfruin, the Glen of Wailing, where took place the terrible clan battle between the MacGregors and Colquhouns, where the MacGregors were victorious. But as Scott wrote, "the consequences of the battle of Glenfruin were very calamitous to the family of MacGregor." Sixty widows of the Colquhouns rode to Stirling each on a white palfrey, a "choir of mourning dames." James VI, that most moral monarch, let loose his judicious wrath, the very name of the clan was proscribed, fire and sword pursued the MacGregors. The Highlanders are dauntless. There still exist MacGregors and with the MacGregor spirit. And who that heard the Glasgow choir sing the superb "MacGregors Gathering"—Thain' a Grigalach—but will gather at the cry, "The MacGregor is come!"
"The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae,And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day;Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach!Gather, gather, gather."If they rob us of name and pursue us with beagles,Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles,Then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, Grigalach!Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance."Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall career,O'er the peak of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer,Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach!Gather, gather, gather."
There are twenty-four islands marooned in this part of the lake; for according to the old legend, one of these was a floating island and so to chain one they chained all. The first island is Inch Murrin, at which I looked with due respect, for it is a deer park of the present Duke of Montrose. I know not if he is descended from The Montrose, or from Malcolm Graeme and Fair Ellen, but let us believe it; it does not do to smile at the claims of long descent in this persisting Scotland. The Duke lives in Buchanan Castle, near the lake. Also he owns Ben Lomond. Also—I read it in "More Leaves" of Queen Victoria's Journal—"Duke of Montrose to whom half of Loch Lomond belongs."
It was here that Dorothy Wordsworth looked and recorded, "It is an outlandish scene; we might have believed ourselves in North America." And so, I knew the Lomond country for my own.
The steep, steep sides of Ben Lomond are in view at the top of the Loch, but the ballad may well have contented itself with the sides. ForI know one traveler who wished to be loyal to the Ben, and having seen it in 1889, and not seen it for the thick Scotch mist, returned again in 1911, and had her only day of rain in sailing across Loch Lomond. The ballad turned into a coronach—
"But the broken heart kens nae second springThough resigned we may be while we're greetin'.Ye'll tak the highway and I'll tak the low way."
It is all MacGregor country, that is to say Rob Roy country. We are bound for Inversnaid, so was he. All about Lomond he had his ways, Rob Roy's prison, Rob Roy's cave, Rob Roy's grave, and all. And though there are other claims hereabout, and although Robert Bruce himself preceded Robert Roy in the cave, such is the power of the Wizard that it is the later Robert one permits to inhabit these places.
We remembered that Queen Victoria had preferred the roads to the steamer. So we left the boat at Rowardennan pier. Not to walk the pleasant ambling highways, that by some good public fortune run near the "bonny bonny banks," and, in spite of the Duke of Montrose, make the lake belong to us, to whom, of course, it does belong, but to walk to the top of the Ben.
The path, if one keeps the path, and heshould, is safe, the gradation easy; an American is like to smile at the claims of long ascent of a mountain which is but 3192 feet from the sea to top. But let one wander ever little from the path, attempt to make a new and direct descent, and let one of those mists which hang so near a Scotch day actually descend upon the top of the Ben—it is not the mildest sensation to find one's foot poised just at the edge of a precipice. It is not well to defy these three thousand feet because one has climbed higher heights. Ben Lomond can do its bit. And it can furnish a panorama which the taller Ben Nevis cannot rival, cannot equal. The Castle Rocks of Stirling and of Edinburgh, on a clean clear day; nearer, Ben Ledi and Ben Venue, names to thrill a far remembrance; Ben Cruachan, bringing the Mull country from near remembrance. And farther across, pale but apparent, the mountains of Ireland. A marvel of vision.
At Inversnaid one is again with Dorothy Wordsworth. It was here or hereabouts that William dropped the package of lunch in the water. So like William! I wonder Dorothy let him carry it. It was here William saw the Highland Girl, and wrote those lovely lines of her—
"Now thanks to Heaven! that of its graceHath led me to this lonely place.Joy have I had; and going henceI bear away my recompense.In spots like these it is we prizeOur memory; feel that she hath eyes....For I, methinks, till I grow old,As fair before me shall behold,As I do now, the cabin small,The lake, the bay, the waterfall;And thee, the spirit of them all!"
And now one really begins to thrill. One is really going to Loch Katrine, to the Trossachs. The road is preferable, five miles of foot-pleasure, as against the filled coaches with perhaps "gallant grays," and certainly fellow travelers who quote and misquote the lines. No, it shall be on foot, up through the steep glen of Arklet water, out on the high open moor where the Highland cattle browse, with Ben Voirlich constantly in view, and Ben Venue coming even to meet us; with William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Coleridge walking beside us all the way. (Dorothy always called it "Ketterine," but then, she came hither seven years before "The Lady" was published.)
The old Highland fort was a perplexity to the Wordsworths. William thought it a hospice like those he had seen in Switzerland, and even later when told it was a fort Dorothy didnot quite believe. It was built at the time of the Fifteen to keep caterans—of which Rob Roy was one—in subjection. And the American looks with interest because here, in his youth—which was all he ever had in truth—General Wolfe, who fell on the Heights of Abraham but won Quebec, commanded the fort of this Highland height. I could but wonder how the French travelers who throng these Scotch highways feel when they remember this victor over Montcalm. Now that they have fought together "somewhere in France," no doubt they feel no more keenly than an Englishman at Bannockburn.
There is not too much lure to keep one's mind and one's feet from Loch Katrine. There was a piper on the way, tall and kilted in the tartan of the MacGregor. (Helen MacGregor, wife of Rob Roy, was born at Loch Arklet, and across the hill in Glengyle Rob Roy was born, conveniently.) The piper piped most valiantly. I should like to have set him a "blawin'" o' the pipes with our piper on the Caledonian loch, something like the tilt which Alan Breck had with Robinoig, son of Rob Roy.
The road drops down to Stronachlachar. Through the hill defile one catches the gleam, and quickly "the sheet of burnished gold" rollsbefore the eye. It is more splendid than when Dorothy Wordsworth viewed it, "the whole lake appeared a solitude, neither boat, islands, nor houses, no grandeur in the hills, nor any loveliness on the shores." Poor Dorothy! She was hungry and tired, and did not know where she should lay her head. Later, next day, at the farther end, she loved it, "the perfection of loveliness and beauty."
LOCH KATRINE.LOCH KATRINE.
As for us, it was early morning, we had breakfasted, fate could not harm us, and we knew our way. We were approaching it from the direction opposite to Majesty, the soft gray clouded stillness, early out of the morning world. But Scott had seen this picture also—
"The summer's dawn reflected hueTo purple changed Loch Katrine blue;Mildly and soft the western breezeJust kissed the lake, just stirr'd the trees,And the pleased lake, like maiden coyTrembled but dimpled not for joy;The mountain shadows on her breastWere neither broken nor at rest;In bright uncertainty they lie,Like future joys to Fancy's eye.The water-lily to the lightHer chalice rear'd of silver bright;The doe awoke and to the lawnBegemm'd with dewdrops, led her fawn.The gray mist left the mountain side,The torrent show'd its glistening pride,Invisible in flecked sky,The lark sent down her revelry;The black-bird and the speckled thrushGood morrow gave from brake and bush;In answer coo'd the cushat dove,Her notes of peace, and rest, and love."
Here we hit upon a device to possess Loch Katrine, both "going and coming," to see the lake at dawn, simply as beauty, and then to come upon it as came Fitz James. With a glass of milk for fast-breaking—we had had a substantial breakfast at Inversnaid, and this glass was but for auld lang syne, a pledge of my companion to her early memories—we set out for "far Loch Ard or Aberfoyle."
I think had we known how very modern is this way which curves about the west side of Katrine we might have shunned it. Certain the stag would have done it. He did, you remember; refusing to charge upon Ben Venue, and thus avoiding the future site of the Water Works of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow. Perhaps Glasgow is the best equipped municipality in the world. Yet, what city but Glasgow would have tapped Loch Katrine to furnish water for Glaswegians!
Our road ran in the deep defile that lies between the two great bens, Lomond (3192) and Venue (2393). The top of Lomond was clearin the increasing sunlight, but mists still skirted his feet; while Venue was mist-clad from base to summit, the thin white veils tearing every now and then, as they swayed against the pine trees jagged tops, and lifting and then settling again.
And soon, we were at "far Loch Ard." It is a lovely little bit of water; we wondered why the stag was not tempted to turn aside hither—but then, we remembered, the stag did know, did save himself. Fishermen were out in their boats, and altogether we decided that if the stag did not come here we should, in the distant time when we should spend a summer in this Highland peace.
Ard is little, but a large-in-little, a one-act play to Lomond's big drama. We chose our "seat," and we hoped that the owner of The Glashart would be gracious when we sent him word of his eviction. Glashart is a short way above the pass of Aberfoyle where, to our pleasure, the troops of Cromwell were defeated by Graham of Duchray.
But this time, after twelve miles of walk, come noontide and a keen appetite, like the stag who
"pondered refuge from his toil"
we were content to house ourselves in the hotelat Aberfoyle. We chose the one called "Baillie Nicol Jarvie," because this is all Rob Roy country. In truth we felt at home with the Baillie, and with the Forth flowing in front of the town, and the old clachan of Aberfoyle marked by a few stones.
In the late afternoon of this already full day we found there was a coach leaving for Lake Menteith which would return in the late twilight, too late for dinner, but Baillie Nicol was kind and we could have supper on our return. So we were off to Menteith, and to an old memory, reaching back to the daughter of James Fitz James. But at this far distance she seemed to belong to an older day.
Menteith is a little lake, a fragment of the abundant blue of Scotland's waters, and it is surrounded by hills that are heather clad; only the southern shore is wooded. Near the southern shore lies anchored the Island of Inchmahone—isle of rest—where once stood a priory, and now only a few arches keep the shadowy memory in their green covert. The stones of the dead lie about, for the Isle of Rest was an island of burial.
Hither came Mary Queen of Scots, when she was five years old, here for an island of refuge, since the defeat at Pinkie meant that HenryVIII was nearer and nearer the little life that stood between him and Scotland's throne—
"O ye mariners, mariners, mariners,That sail upon the sea,Let not my father nor mother to wit,The death that I maun die!"
She came with her four Maries, and together they went to France, together they made merry and made love at the French court, and, all unscathed, they returned fifteen years later—
"Yestreen the queen had four Maries,To-night she'll hae but three;There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beatoun,And Marie Carmichael and me—"
It was as though she were lost from the world, as we went back in the dimming day; almost the only time I have ever lost her since historic memories came to be my own personal memories. And yet, I knew I should find her again. Mary is one of the women who do not go into exile once they have made harbour in the affections.
Next day, half by a hill-road and half by a foot-path, with mountains whose names were poems evoking the one poem of the region, with the far view, and with birches closing in the highway now and then, and now and then opening into a near-far view of glen and stream andstrath and path, we came to—The Trossachs.