CHAPTER VTHE HEART OF THE TROSSACHS

CHAPTER VTHE HEART OF THE TROSSACHSAswe have heard the Trossachs signifies “bristled territory,” a suitable name enough, and as they have been described by the master himself, there would be little use in trying to improve upon his words, which are as follows:With boughs that quaked at every breath,Grey birch and aspen wept beneath;Aloft, the ash and warrior oakCast anchor in the rifted rock;And, higher yet, the pine-tree hungHis shattered trunk, and frequent flung,Where seem’d the cliffs to meet on high,His boughs athwart the narrow’d sky.Highest of all where white peaks glanced,Where glistening streamers waved and danced,The wanderer’s eye could barely viewThe summer heaven’s delicious blue;So wondrous wild, the whole might seemThe scenery of a fairy dream.Dorothy WordsworthIt must be remembered that the beautiful evenroad which now runs through the heart of this fairyland was a work of great difficulty and cost. It has been hewn out of the side of the rock, and built up by the side of the loch in order to facilitate the constant stream of tourists. At first there were several wild pathways leading down to Loch Katrine through a perfect wilderness of boughs and undergrowth, and at the end a precipitous drop over the edge of a steep crag, only scaled by the aid of a sort of natural ladder of saplings and tendrils, and it is thus that Scott makes Fitz-James approach the loch. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, when Dorothy Wordsworth and her brother reached the Trossachs from Loch Katrine, a great improvement had taken place. When nearing the end of the lake, she says, they came in sight of two huts, which had been built by Lady Perth as a shelter for visitors. “The huts stand at a small distance from each other, on a high and perpendicular rock, that rises from the bed of the lake. A road, which has a very wild appearance, has been cut through the rock; yet even here, among these bold precipices, the feeling of excessive beautifulness overcomes every other.”THE SILVER STRAND, LOCH KATRINE.Where Scott describes the meeting between Fitz-James and Ellen of the Isle.In her there was already that new appreciation of the natural beauty which her brother was to do so much to encourage in all. Her description of the Trossachs, after they had landed, clearly shows this: “Above and below us, to the right and to the left, were rocks, knolls, and hills, which, whenever anything could grow—and that was everywhere between the rocks—were covered with trees and heather. The trees did not in any place grow so thick as an ordinary wood, yet I think there was never a bare space of twenty yards; it was more like a natural forest, where the trees grow in groups or singly, not hiding the surface of the ground, which, instead of being green and mossy, was of the richest purple. The heather was indeed the most luxuriant I ever saw; it was so tall that a child of ten years old struggling through it would often have been buried head and shoulders, and the exquisite beauty of the colour, near or at a distance, seen under the trees is not to be conceived.”And as it was then so it is now: a better description of the peculiar scenery of the Trossachs could hardly be given, especially if we add the detail that bog-myrtle and birches grow abundantly,adding to the fragrance and poetry of the place. Winding round to the right runs the road to the Silver Strand, now much covered by the rising of the water owing to the precautions taken by the Glasgow Waterworks, which gets its supply from Loch Katrine. Here Fitz-James is supposed to have stood. Right in front is Ellen’s Isle, thickly wooded; behind it rises the vast shoulder of Ben Venue, and away to the right stretches westward the full length of the lake, broken by promontories,Where, gleaming with the setting sun,One burnish’d sheet of living gold,Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll’d;In all her length far winding lay,With promontory, creek and bay,And islands that, empurpled bright,Floated amid the livelier light;And mountains, that like giants stand,To sentinel enchanted land.High on the south, huge Ben VenueDown to the lake in masses threwCrags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl’d,The fragments of an earlier world.In the whole of a justly celebrated poem there is no passage finer than this, and, oft quoted as it has been, it would be impossible to omit it.Ellen’s Isle is, of course, so named after Scott’s heroine; the Highland name is Eilean Molach, meaning the “Shaggy Island,” and it is quite likely that with this in his mind Scott chose the name Ellen as the nearest English-sounding equivalent.The Goblin’s Cave, to which Ellen and her family retreated, is on the side of Ben Venue, and above is the Bealach Nambo, or the Pass of the Cattle, which Scott alluded to as:The dell upon the mountain’s crestYawned like a gash on warrior’s breast.This can be reached on foot by a not too difficult walk, but most people prefer to view it from below. The Goblin’s Cave is impossible of exact identification, if, indeed, it had any actual prototype.Loch KatrineIt has been suggested that the name of Loch Katrine arose from the hordes of robbers, or caterans, who infested its shores. If this be so, the name has been softened into something much more appropriate to the loveliness of the scenery, which is at its best at the east end. The Wordsworth party, indeed, coming from the other end, were at first disappointed. As theonly means of transit was by a small row-boat, Coleridge was afraid of the cold and walked along the northern shore from Glengyle, though not, of course, on the well-made-up road which runs part of the way at present. Wordsworth himself slept in the bottom of the boat, which they had procured with much difficulty, and told his sister to awake him if anything worth seeing occurred. It was not until they nearly reached the eastern end that she did this, though then she confessed that what they saw was “the perfection of loveliness and beauty.”The lake is about eight miles long by three-quarters broad, but the actual width varies very much, owing to the numerous indentations. The road on the northern shore runs to Glengyle, but there stops, so that the only means of getting right on to Loch Lomond is to take the steamer, which awaits tourists several times daily. No doubt a road by which cyclists could travel on their own account would be strenuously resisted in the neighbourhood, where the chief aim and object of the tourist’s being is supposed to be to pay for everything. On the southern side the steepness of the precipices of Ben Venue prevents any possibility of a road.LOCH KATRINE AND ELLEN’S ISLE.Opposite to Ben Venue, and best seen from the lake itself, is Ben A’an, only 1,750 feet in height. At the north-west end of Loch Katrine is Glengyle, the hereditary burial-place of the Macgregors.The steamer stops at Stronachlachar, about three-quarters of the way down the lake on the south side, and here a coach meets it to convey passengers across to Inversnaid, on Loch Lomond.“Stepping Westward”With Loch Katrine the scenes identified withThe Lady of the Lakecome to an end. The road to Loch Lomond passes over a wild, rough heath, in strong contrast to the wooded loveliness of the eastern end of Loch Katrine, but quite as attractive to some natures, especially when the soft grey clouds lie low and the russets and browns of the bracken and heather replace the rich glory of its purple robe. It was hereabouts that the Wordsworths, when returning to Lomond, were greeted by two Highland women, who said in a friendly way: “What! you are stepping westward”—a simple sentence which gave Wordsworth the inspiration for the poem which he wrote long afterwards beginning with the same words.The Real Rob RoyLoch Arklet lies very flat between its shores, and has no beauty except its wildness. At one end lived for some time Rob Roy and his wife; indeed, all this district, right up to Glen Falloch on the one side, and down to the shoulders of Ben Lomond on the other, is associated with the outlaw, of whom Scott made a hero. The district has also associations with a much greater than he, for it is redolent of the wanderings of Robert the Bruce, when he was hunted by his bitter enemies, the men of Lorn.It is supposed that Roderick Dhu in Scott’s poem was a shadowy form of Rob Roy, who is more developed in the book which was published seven years later. Both were of uncommon personal strength, both were cattle-lifters and outlaws, both were of the great clan of Macgregor, and there are minor resemblances.BEN A’AN (Seen from Loch Katrine).Rob’s designation was “of Inversnaid,” and he owned Craig Royston, a district lying east of Lomond, near the north end. He began as a man of property and a land-holder, rough and poor as his territory was. He went on to be a cattle-dealer on a large scale, and this turned to something more nefarious. A distraint was levied on his property, and he had to leave the shores ofLomond. To this fact is attributed the wild piper’s tune of “The Lament of Rob Roy,” composed by his wife, which has something of the mournful beauty of the country incorporated in its weird strains:Through the depths of Loch Lomond the steed shall career,O’er the heights of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer,And the rocks of Craig Royston like icicles melt,Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt.Rob seems to have been in some way a Robin Hood, exercising generosity toward those poorer and weaker than himself, and he was greatly beloved by the people in consequence. Many a ballad is connected with his name, and he became a popular hero even before his death. He took part in 1715 Rebellion on the Jacobite side, and at the Battle of Sheriffmuir seems to have been afflicted with the peculiar indecision that paralyzed both sides on that memorable day. He was leading, beside his own clan, a party of Macphersons, whose chief was too infirm to take the field, and he retained his station on a hill, though positively ordered by the Earl of Mar to charge. It is said that this charge might have decided the day. This incident is embodied in the ballad on the occasion:Rob Roy he stood watchOn a hill for to catchThe booty for aught that I saw, mon;For he ne’er advancedFrom the place where he stancedTill nae mair was to do there at a’, mon.It is impossible to give even an account of all Rob’s pranks, some of which are doubtless mythical, and others which do not greatly redound to his credit. He had certainly that picturesque personality which has attracted romancers in all ages, and he formed a very fitting subject for Scott’s pen.In the end he turned Roman Catholic, and died, as already stated, at Balquhidder.The road drops very steeply down to Lomond, and passes the earthworks which mark the site of a fort built by William III. to overawe the rebels. The fort, being on the great outlaw’s property, was an object of peculiar hatred. Twice it was surprised and taken—once by Roy himself and once by his nephew. It is said that at one time General, then Captain, Wolfe was in command of it.The Highland GirlThe little stream Arklet dances and brawls over its bed, in its descent accompanying the road, and at length leaps into the lake by a splendidwaterfall thirty feet in height. Close by this is the palatial hotel at Inversnaid, a brother to the one at the Trossachs. When the Wordsworths arrived here the first time, after having with great difficulty got across Loch Lomond in a row-boat, they found only a miserable ferry-house, with a mud floor, and rain coming in at the roof. It was here that Wordsworth saw the prototype of his “sweet Highland girl.”

Aswe have heard the Trossachs signifies “bristled territory,” a suitable name enough, and as they have been described by the master himself, there would be little use in trying to improve upon his words, which are as follows:

With boughs that quaked at every breath,Grey birch and aspen wept beneath;Aloft, the ash and warrior oakCast anchor in the rifted rock;And, higher yet, the pine-tree hungHis shattered trunk, and frequent flung,Where seem’d the cliffs to meet on high,His boughs athwart the narrow’d sky.Highest of all where white peaks glanced,Where glistening streamers waved and danced,The wanderer’s eye could barely viewThe summer heaven’s delicious blue;So wondrous wild, the whole might seemThe scenery of a fairy dream.

With boughs that quaked at every breath,

Grey birch and aspen wept beneath;

Aloft, the ash and warrior oak

Cast anchor in the rifted rock;

And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung

His shattered trunk, and frequent flung,

Where seem’d the cliffs to meet on high,

His boughs athwart the narrow’d sky.

Highest of all where white peaks glanced,

Where glistening streamers waved and danced,

The wanderer’s eye could barely view

The summer heaven’s delicious blue;

So wondrous wild, the whole might seem

The scenery of a fairy dream.

Dorothy Wordsworth

It must be remembered that the beautiful evenroad which now runs through the heart of this fairyland was a work of great difficulty and cost. It has been hewn out of the side of the rock, and built up by the side of the loch in order to facilitate the constant stream of tourists. At first there were several wild pathways leading down to Loch Katrine through a perfect wilderness of boughs and undergrowth, and at the end a precipitous drop over the edge of a steep crag, only scaled by the aid of a sort of natural ladder of saplings and tendrils, and it is thus that Scott makes Fitz-James approach the loch. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, when Dorothy Wordsworth and her brother reached the Trossachs from Loch Katrine, a great improvement had taken place. When nearing the end of the lake, she says, they came in sight of two huts, which had been built by Lady Perth as a shelter for visitors. “The huts stand at a small distance from each other, on a high and perpendicular rock, that rises from the bed of the lake. A road, which has a very wild appearance, has been cut through the rock; yet even here, among these bold precipices, the feeling of excessive beautifulness overcomes every other.”

THE SILVER STRAND, LOCH KATRINE.Where Scott describes the meeting between Fitz-James and Ellen of the Isle.

THE SILVER STRAND, LOCH KATRINE.

Where Scott describes the meeting between Fitz-James and Ellen of the Isle.

In her there was already that new appreciation of the natural beauty which her brother was to do so much to encourage in all. Her description of the Trossachs, after they had landed, clearly shows this: “Above and below us, to the right and to the left, were rocks, knolls, and hills, which, whenever anything could grow—and that was everywhere between the rocks—were covered with trees and heather. The trees did not in any place grow so thick as an ordinary wood, yet I think there was never a bare space of twenty yards; it was more like a natural forest, where the trees grow in groups or singly, not hiding the surface of the ground, which, instead of being green and mossy, was of the richest purple. The heather was indeed the most luxuriant I ever saw; it was so tall that a child of ten years old struggling through it would often have been buried head and shoulders, and the exquisite beauty of the colour, near or at a distance, seen under the trees is not to be conceived.”

And as it was then so it is now: a better description of the peculiar scenery of the Trossachs could hardly be given, especially if we add the detail that bog-myrtle and birches grow abundantly,adding to the fragrance and poetry of the place. Winding round to the right runs the road to the Silver Strand, now much covered by the rising of the water owing to the precautions taken by the Glasgow Waterworks, which gets its supply from Loch Katrine. Here Fitz-James is supposed to have stood. Right in front is Ellen’s Isle, thickly wooded; behind it rises the vast shoulder of Ben Venue, and away to the right stretches westward the full length of the lake, broken by promontories,

Where, gleaming with the setting sun,One burnish’d sheet of living gold,Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll’d;In all her length far winding lay,With promontory, creek and bay,And islands that, empurpled bright,Floated amid the livelier light;And mountains, that like giants stand,To sentinel enchanted land.High on the south, huge Ben VenueDown to the lake in masses threwCrags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl’d,The fragments of an earlier world.

Where, gleaming with the setting sun,

One burnish’d sheet of living gold,

Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll’d;

In all her length far winding lay,

With promontory, creek and bay,

And islands that, empurpled bright,

Floated amid the livelier light;

And mountains, that like giants stand,

To sentinel enchanted land.

High on the south, huge Ben Venue

Down to the lake in masses threw

Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl’d,

The fragments of an earlier world.

In the whole of a justly celebrated poem there is no passage finer than this, and, oft quoted as it has been, it would be impossible to omit it.

Ellen’s Isle is, of course, so named after Scott’s heroine; the Highland name is Eilean Molach, meaning the “Shaggy Island,” and it is quite likely that with this in his mind Scott chose the name Ellen as the nearest English-sounding equivalent.

The Goblin’s Cave, to which Ellen and her family retreated, is on the side of Ben Venue, and above is the Bealach Nambo, or the Pass of the Cattle, which Scott alluded to as:

The dell upon the mountain’s crestYawned like a gash on warrior’s breast.

The dell upon the mountain’s crest

Yawned like a gash on warrior’s breast.

This can be reached on foot by a not too difficult walk, but most people prefer to view it from below. The Goblin’s Cave is impossible of exact identification, if, indeed, it had any actual prototype.

Loch Katrine

It has been suggested that the name of Loch Katrine arose from the hordes of robbers, or caterans, who infested its shores. If this be so, the name has been softened into something much more appropriate to the loveliness of the scenery, which is at its best at the east end. The Wordsworth party, indeed, coming from the other end, were at first disappointed. As theonly means of transit was by a small row-boat, Coleridge was afraid of the cold and walked along the northern shore from Glengyle, though not, of course, on the well-made-up road which runs part of the way at present. Wordsworth himself slept in the bottom of the boat, which they had procured with much difficulty, and told his sister to awake him if anything worth seeing occurred. It was not until they nearly reached the eastern end that she did this, though then she confessed that what they saw was “the perfection of loveliness and beauty.”

The lake is about eight miles long by three-quarters broad, but the actual width varies very much, owing to the numerous indentations. The road on the northern shore runs to Glengyle, but there stops, so that the only means of getting right on to Loch Lomond is to take the steamer, which awaits tourists several times daily. No doubt a road by which cyclists could travel on their own account would be strenuously resisted in the neighbourhood, where the chief aim and object of the tourist’s being is supposed to be to pay for everything. On the southern side the steepness of the precipices of Ben Venue prevents any possibility of a road.

LOCH KATRINE AND ELLEN’S ISLE.

Opposite to Ben Venue, and best seen from the lake itself, is Ben A’an, only 1,750 feet in height. At the north-west end of Loch Katrine is Glengyle, the hereditary burial-place of the Macgregors.

The steamer stops at Stronachlachar, about three-quarters of the way down the lake on the south side, and here a coach meets it to convey passengers across to Inversnaid, on Loch Lomond.

“Stepping Westward”

With Loch Katrine the scenes identified withThe Lady of the Lakecome to an end. The road to Loch Lomond passes over a wild, rough heath, in strong contrast to the wooded loveliness of the eastern end of Loch Katrine, but quite as attractive to some natures, especially when the soft grey clouds lie low and the russets and browns of the bracken and heather replace the rich glory of its purple robe. It was hereabouts that the Wordsworths, when returning to Lomond, were greeted by two Highland women, who said in a friendly way: “What! you are stepping westward”—a simple sentence which gave Wordsworth the inspiration for the poem which he wrote long afterwards beginning with the same words.

The Real Rob Roy

Loch Arklet lies very flat between its shores, and has no beauty except its wildness. At one end lived for some time Rob Roy and his wife; indeed, all this district, right up to Glen Falloch on the one side, and down to the shoulders of Ben Lomond on the other, is associated with the outlaw, of whom Scott made a hero. The district has also associations with a much greater than he, for it is redolent of the wanderings of Robert the Bruce, when he was hunted by his bitter enemies, the men of Lorn.

It is supposed that Roderick Dhu in Scott’s poem was a shadowy form of Rob Roy, who is more developed in the book which was published seven years later. Both were of uncommon personal strength, both were cattle-lifters and outlaws, both were of the great clan of Macgregor, and there are minor resemblances.

BEN A’AN (Seen from Loch Katrine).

Rob’s designation was “of Inversnaid,” and he owned Craig Royston, a district lying east of Lomond, near the north end. He began as a man of property and a land-holder, rough and poor as his territory was. He went on to be a cattle-dealer on a large scale, and this turned to something more nefarious. A distraint was levied on his property, and he had to leave the shores ofLomond. To this fact is attributed the wild piper’s tune of “The Lament of Rob Roy,” composed by his wife, which has something of the mournful beauty of the country incorporated in its weird strains:

Through the depths of Loch Lomond the steed shall career,O’er the heights of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer,And the rocks of Craig Royston like icicles melt,Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt.

Through the depths of Loch Lomond the steed shall career,

O’er the heights of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer,

And the rocks of Craig Royston like icicles melt,

Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt.

Rob seems to have been in some way a Robin Hood, exercising generosity toward those poorer and weaker than himself, and he was greatly beloved by the people in consequence. Many a ballad is connected with his name, and he became a popular hero even before his death. He took part in 1715 Rebellion on the Jacobite side, and at the Battle of Sheriffmuir seems to have been afflicted with the peculiar indecision that paralyzed both sides on that memorable day. He was leading, beside his own clan, a party of Macphersons, whose chief was too infirm to take the field, and he retained his station on a hill, though positively ordered by the Earl of Mar to charge. It is said that this charge might have decided the day. This incident is embodied in the ballad on the occasion:

Rob Roy he stood watchOn a hill for to catchThe booty for aught that I saw, mon;For he ne’er advancedFrom the place where he stancedTill nae mair was to do there at a’, mon.

Rob Roy he stood watch

On a hill for to catch

The booty for aught that I saw, mon;

For he ne’er advanced

From the place where he stanced

Till nae mair was to do there at a’, mon.

It is impossible to give even an account of all Rob’s pranks, some of which are doubtless mythical, and others which do not greatly redound to his credit. He had certainly that picturesque personality which has attracted romancers in all ages, and he formed a very fitting subject for Scott’s pen.

In the end he turned Roman Catholic, and died, as already stated, at Balquhidder.

The road drops very steeply down to Lomond, and passes the earthworks which mark the site of a fort built by William III. to overawe the rebels. The fort, being on the great outlaw’s property, was an object of peculiar hatred. Twice it was surprised and taken—once by Roy himself and once by his nephew. It is said that at one time General, then Captain, Wolfe was in command of it.

The Highland Girl

The little stream Arklet dances and brawls over its bed, in its descent accompanying the road, and at length leaps into the lake by a splendidwaterfall thirty feet in height. Close by this is the palatial hotel at Inversnaid, a brother to the one at the Trossachs. When the Wordsworths arrived here the first time, after having with great difficulty got across Loch Lomond in a row-boat, they found only a miserable ferry-house, with a mud floor, and rain coming in at the roof. It was here that Wordsworth saw the prototype of his “sweet Highland girl.”

CHAPTER VILOMOND AND THE MACGREGORSBen LomondLomondis one of the two most magnificent lochs in Scotland. It is twenty-one miles long, its only rival being Loch Awe, which is three miles longer. It is of a curious wedge shape, being about five miles broad at the low end and narrowing to a point in the north. In the widest part it bears a perfect archipelago of islands, once thickly populated, but now left mostly to deer and other wild creatures. There is a tradition of a floating island, repeated by many an ancient traveller; but all trace of this phenomenon has vanished—if, indeed, it ever existed. The fishing in the loch is free, and salmon, sea-trout, lake-trout, pike, and perch are to be caught. The nearness of the great lake to Glasgow is at once an advantage and a drawback. It is an advantage for the thousands that pour out of the grimy city on every holiday, and, at halfan hour from their own doors, for a trifling sum, can spend joyous days in scenery which can be classed with the most beautiful in the world. But it is certainly not an unmixed joy to the real lover of Nature, who approaches the lake in a spirit of worship, to find the shores black with people and the steamers thronged with tourists. The attractions pointed out to those who pass up or down the great sheet of water are various. Not the least is the giant Ben, who raises his proud head on the eastern side, “a sort of Scottish Vesuvius, never wholly without a cloud-cap. You cannot move a step that it does not tower over you. In winter a vast white sugar-loaf; in summer a prismatic cone of yellow and amethyst and opaline lights; in spring a grey, gloomy, stony pile of rocks; in autumn a weather indicator, for when the mist curls down its sides and hangs in heavy wreaths from its double summit, ‘it has to rain,’ as the Spaniards say.”The mountain is 3,192 feet high, and the ascent is not difficult; by the gradually sloping way from the hotel at Rowardennan it is about five or six miles, without any very stiff climbing, and there is a choice of other routes. On a clear day, which is a rare boon, the view fromthe summit is superb. Sitting on its topmost pinnacle, one looks down the almost perpendicular north-eastern slope into the little valley where the River Forth may be said to take its rise. On the western side Loch Lomond stretches out in full length, and across the narrow isthmus of Tarbet is the sea-loch, Loch Long. Far away to the east and south the eye may range over the Lothians, Edinburgh, and Arthur’s Seat, and even to the distant hills of Cumberland and the Isle of Man; while farther west, backed by the Irish coast, is the whole scenery of the beautiful Clyde estuary and the nearer Hebrides. Northward, peak after peak, rise the stately masses of the Grampians.Leaving Inversnaid, the first point to which attention is usually drawn is the cave in the corries on the east side, called Rob Roy’s Cave; much farther down the loch, amid the screes of Ben Lomond, is another hole, called Rob Roy’s Prison. The Island Vow, midway across the loch opposite Inversnaid, owes its name to a corruption of Eilean Vhow, meaning the Brownies’ Isle, a fascinating enough name to a child. On the island are some remains of the Macfarlanes’ stronghold. Wordsworth’s poemThe Brownieoriginated with this island. On the farther shore, a little more northward, there is what is called the Pulpit Rock, a cell cut out on the face of the cliff so that it could be used for open-air preaching.The MacfarlanesRight opposite is Ben Voirlich, and, in its fastnesses, wild Loch Sloy, whose name formed the war-cry of the Macfarlanes.The reputation of this clan was not far behind the Macgregors as far as desperate courage and mad savagery count. Their headquarters were at first on the Isle of Inveruglas, just near the outflow of that stream into the loch; then they moved to the Brownies’ Island, doubtless finding the near neighbourhood of their hereditary enemies, the men of Lorn, too dangerous; but subsequently, becoming bolder, they went to Tarbet, and there settled.The name Tarbet means draw-boat, and the story goes that Haco, King of Norway, in 1263 entered Loch Long, and, sailing up it, made his men drag the long flat-bottomed boats across the isthmus, and launch them on Loch Lomond, in order that he might the more easily attack the people on its shores for plunder.The next point of interest is the promontoryof Luss, which gives its name to Colquhoun of Luss, whose seat is on the next most beautiful wooded promontory at Rossdhu. This family is one of the most ancient on record, being able to trace its ancestry back to the Colquhouns in 1190 and the Lusses in 1150, which two families were united in the main line by the marriage of a Colquhoun with the heiress of Luss about 1368. Mrs. Walford, the well-known novelist, is a scion of this family. The present mansion was built about the end of the eighteenth century, but a fragment of the old ancestral home is still standing. Not far off are Court Hill and Gallows Hill, where the chieftain tried delinquents, and where justice was meted out to them. The slogan of the clan means “Knoll of the willow.”Across the loch, on the opposite side, is Ross Priory, where Scott was staying with his friend Hector Macdonald when he wrote part ofRob Roy.LOCH LOMOND (Looking towards Glen Falloch).It is one of the largest lakes in Scotland, and forms part of the famous Trossachs round.The IslandsJust about here we are in a perfect world of islands, some of which—notably Inchmurrin—are preserved as a deer-park. At the south end are the ruins of a castle once inhabited by the Earls of Lennox, who belonged to the Macfarlaneclan. Here Isabel, Duchess of Albany, retired when her father, husband, and sons had been executed at Stirling in 1424. Of the other islands, we have the names of Inchchlonaig, meaning the Island of Yew-trees, on which the yews are said to have been planted by Robert Bruce to furnish bows for his archers; Inchtavannach, or Monks’ Island; Inchcruin, Round Island; Inchfad, Long Island; and Inchcaillach, the Island of Women, from a nunnery once established here. This is close to the Pier of Balmaha, where is the entrance to a pass over the mountains, a well-known road in the old days of tribal war and bloodshed.The Wordsworths landed on Inchtavannach, and climbed to the top of it. Here is Dorothy’s description: “We had not climbed far before we were stopped by a sudden burst of prospect, so singular and beautiful that it was like a flash of images from another world. We stood with our backs to the hill of the island, which we were ascending, and which shut out Ben Lomond entirely and all the upper part of the lake, and we looked toward the foot of the lake, scattered over with islands, without beginning and without end. The sun shone, and the distant hillswere visible—some through sunny mists, others in gloom with patches of sunshine; the lake was lost under the low and distant hills, and the islands lost in the lake, which was all in motion, with travelling fields of light, or dark shadows under rainy clouds. There are many hills, but no commanding eminence at a distance to confine the prospect, so that the land seemed endless as the water.... Immediately under my eyes lay one large flat island bare and green ... another, its next neighbour, was covered with heath and coppice wood, the surface undulating.... These two islands, with Inchtavannach, where we were standing, were intermingled with the water, I might say interbedded, and interveined with it, in a manner that was exquisitely pleasing. There were bays innumerable, straits or passages like calm rivers, land-locked lakes, and, to the main water, stormy promontories.”Not far from Rossdhu, on the west, is the entrance to Glen Fruin, the Glen of Weeping—a sad name, which turned out to be appropriate enough in view of the terrible scenes which happened here.The MacgregorsThe trouble began with the Macgregors.Their clan claimed descent from the third son of Alpine, King of the Scots, who lived about 787, and was therefore known by the alternative name of Clan Alpine. Their savage ways made them hated by their neighbours, and the Earls of Argyll and Breadalbane managed to obtain from the Government a right by charter to a great part of the lands belonging to the unfortunate clan. This, of course, was the signal for a fight to the death.From the time of Queen Mary onward various warrants were given to the other clans to make war on the unfortunate Macgregors, and to extirpate them as they would vermin. They were not only to be hounded out of existence, but the other clans were forbidden to supply them with the common necessaries of life. The climax was reached in the slaughter of Glen Fruin, which arose in this wise: Two of the Macgregors, being benighted, called at the house of one of the Colquhouns, and asked shelter. This was refused. They accordingly helped themselves to a sheep and supped off mutton, for which it is alleged they offered payment. The Laird of Luss seized them and had them both executed. Then the rest of the clan arosein wrath, and, to the number of three or four hundred strong, marched down to Luss. Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, receiving warning of their advance, called together his clansmen and others, to double the number of the invaders, and advanced to meet them, doing so in Glen Fruin.The clan of the Macgregors charged the Colquhouns with fury, and, owing to the fact that part of the opposing force was mounted, and that the horses got mired in the boggy ground, they were able, notwithstanding their inferiority of numbers, to get the best of it, whereupon they set upon their flying foes and slaughtered them mercilessly.The event which, however, lives in memory longest is that of the action of a gigantic Macgregor, called Dugald Ciar Mohr, or the “great mouse-coloured man,” who was in charge, as their tutor, of a party of youths from Glasgow. It is said that, excited by the sound of his clansmen shouting their war-cry, or incensed by the remarks of the youths against his clan, he lost his head; anyway, he slew them all in cold blood.The Clerk’s StoneThe great stone called Leck-a-Mhinisteir, the “minister or clerk’s stone,” is still pointed out asthe place where this horrid deed was done, and it is said the stone was bathed red in the blood of the hapless boys. This Dugald was the ancestor of Rob Roy and his tribe.The terrible song put by Sir Walter Scott into the mouths of the Macgregor boatmen carries with it a wild cry of savagery:Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,And Bannacha’s groans to our slogan replied;Glen Luss and Rossdhu they are smoking in ruin;And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on its side.Widow and Saxon maidLong shall lament our raid,Think of Clan Alpine with fear and with woe;Lennox and Leven GlenShake when they hear againRoderick vich Alpine dhu! ho feroe!After this defeat the fury and wrath of the other clans, who were in favour at Court, may be imagined, and the widows of the slain men, to the number of several score, were sent, dressed in deep mourning, and riding upon white palfreys, carrying each her husband’s bloody shirt, to demand vengeance of King James VI. on the Macgregors. The Court was then at Stirling, and surely Stirling never saw a more woesome sight! The vengeance they obtainedwas all that they could desire, for by an Act of Privy Council, dated April 3, 1603, the name of Macgregor was wiped out of the land, all those who bore it being compelled, under dire penalties, to adopt the name of some other clan; hence it was that Rob Roy was known as Rob Roy Macgregor Campbell. The Macgregors were forbidden to carry any weapons, and were otherwise penalized. The chief, Alistair Macgregor, who had led the fight at Glen Fruin, was seized, and hanged in 1604. Yet, in spite of these and other dire disabilities, the Macgregors continued to be Macgregors in heart, whatever they might call themselves, and held their heads as high as their own crest, a pine-tree. They attached themselves to the cause of King Charles in the Civil Wars, and were subsequently rewarded by the annulling of the Acts and having their rights restored to them.

Ben Lomond

Lomondis one of the two most magnificent lochs in Scotland. It is twenty-one miles long, its only rival being Loch Awe, which is three miles longer. It is of a curious wedge shape, being about five miles broad at the low end and narrowing to a point in the north. In the widest part it bears a perfect archipelago of islands, once thickly populated, but now left mostly to deer and other wild creatures. There is a tradition of a floating island, repeated by many an ancient traveller; but all trace of this phenomenon has vanished—if, indeed, it ever existed. The fishing in the loch is free, and salmon, sea-trout, lake-trout, pike, and perch are to be caught. The nearness of the great lake to Glasgow is at once an advantage and a drawback. It is an advantage for the thousands that pour out of the grimy city on every holiday, and, at halfan hour from their own doors, for a trifling sum, can spend joyous days in scenery which can be classed with the most beautiful in the world. But it is certainly not an unmixed joy to the real lover of Nature, who approaches the lake in a spirit of worship, to find the shores black with people and the steamers thronged with tourists. The attractions pointed out to those who pass up or down the great sheet of water are various. Not the least is the giant Ben, who raises his proud head on the eastern side, “a sort of Scottish Vesuvius, never wholly without a cloud-cap. You cannot move a step that it does not tower over you. In winter a vast white sugar-loaf; in summer a prismatic cone of yellow and amethyst and opaline lights; in spring a grey, gloomy, stony pile of rocks; in autumn a weather indicator, for when the mist curls down its sides and hangs in heavy wreaths from its double summit, ‘it has to rain,’ as the Spaniards say.”

The mountain is 3,192 feet high, and the ascent is not difficult; by the gradually sloping way from the hotel at Rowardennan it is about five or six miles, without any very stiff climbing, and there is a choice of other routes. On a clear day, which is a rare boon, the view fromthe summit is superb. Sitting on its topmost pinnacle, one looks down the almost perpendicular north-eastern slope into the little valley where the River Forth may be said to take its rise. On the western side Loch Lomond stretches out in full length, and across the narrow isthmus of Tarbet is the sea-loch, Loch Long. Far away to the east and south the eye may range over the Lothians, Edinburgh, and Arthur’s Seat, and even to the distant hills of Cumberland and the Isle of Man; while farther west, backed by the Irish coast, is the whole scenery of the beautiful Clyde estuary and the nearer Hebrides. Northward, peak after peak, rise the stately masses of the Grampians.

Leaving Inversnaid, the first point to which attention is usually drawn is the cave in the corries on the east side, called Rob Roy’s Cave; much farther down the loch, amid the screes of Ben Lomond, is another hole, called Rob Roy’s Prison. The Island Vow, midway across the loch opposite Inversnaid, owes its name to a corruption of Eilean Vhow, meaning the Brownies’ Isle, a fascinating enough name to a child. On the island are some remains of the Macfarlanes’ stronghold. Wordsworth’s poemThe Brownieoriginated with this island. On the farther shore, a little more northward, there is what is called the Pulpit Rock, a cell cut out on the face of the cliff so that it could be used for open-air preaching.

The Macfarlanes

Right opposite is Ben Voirlich, and, in its fastnesses, wild Loch Sloy, whose name formed the war-cry of the Macfarlanes.

The reputation of this clan was not far behind the Macgregors as far as desperate courage and mad savagery count. Their headquarters were at first on the Isle of Inveruglas, just near the outflow of that stream into the loch; then they moved to the Brownies’ Island, doubtless finding the near neighbourhood of their hereditary enemies, the men of Lorn, too dangerous; but subsequently, becoming bolder, they went to Tarbet, and there settled.

The name Tarbet means draw-boat, and the story goes that Haco, King of Norway, in 1263 entered Loch Long, and, sailing up it, made his men drag the long flat-bottomed boats across the isthmus, and launch them on Loch Lomond, in order that he might the more easily attack the people on its shores for plunder.

The next point of interest is the promontoryof Luss, which gives its name to Colquhoun of Luss, whose seat is on the next most beautiful wooded promontory at Rossdhu. This family is one of the most ancient on record, being able to trace its ancestry back to the Colquhouns in 1190 and the Lusses in 1150, which two families were united in the main line by the marriage of a Colquhoun with the heiress of Luss about 1368. Mrs. Walford, the well-known novelist, is a scion of this family. The present mansion was built about the end of the eighteenth century, but a fragment of the old ancestral home is still standing. Not far off are Court Hill and Gallows Hill, where the chieftain tried delinquents, and where justice was meted out to them. The slogan of the clan means “Knoll of the willow.”

Across the loch, on the opposite side, is Ross Priory, where Scott was staying with his friend Hector Macdonald when he wrote part ofRob Roy.

LOCH LOMOND (Looking towards Glen Falloch).It is one of the largest lakes in Scotland, and forms part of the famous Trossachs round.

LOCH LOMOND (Looking towards Glen Falloch).

It is one of the largest lakes in Scotland, and forms part of the famous Trossachs round.

The Islands

Just about here we are in a perfect world of islands, some of which—notably Inchmurrin—are preserved as a deer-park. At the south end are the ruins of a castle once inhabited by the Earls of Lennox, who belonged to the Macfarlaneclan. Here Isabel, Duchess of Albany, retired when her father, husband, and sons had been executed at Stirling in 1424. Of the other islands, we have the names of Inchchlonaig, meaning the Island of Yew-trees, on which the yews are said to have been planted by Robert Bruce to furnish bows for his archers; Inchtavannach, or Monks’ Island; Inchcruin, Round Island; Inchfad, Long Island; and Inchcaillach, the Island of Women, from a nunnery once established here. This is close to the Pier of Balmaha, where is the entrance to a pass over the mountains, a well-known road in the old days of tribal war and bloodshed.

The Wordsworths landed on Inchtavannach, and climbed to the top of it. Here is Dorothy’s description: “We had not climbed far before we were stopped by a sudden burst of prospect, so singular and beautiful that it was like a flash of images from another world. We stood with our backs to the hill of the island, which we were ascending, and which shut out Ben Lomond entirely and all the upper part of the lake, and we looked toward the foot of the lake, scattered over with islands, without beginning and without end. The sun shone, and the distant hillswere visible—some through sunny mists, others in gloom with patches of sunshine; the lake was lost under the low and distant hills, and the islands lost in the lake, which was all in motion, with travelling fields of light, or dark shadows under rainy clouds. There are many hills, but no commanding eminence at a distance to confine the prospect, so that the land seemed endless as the water.... Immediately under my eyes lay one large flat island bare and green ... another, its next neighbour, was covered with heath and coppice wood, the surface undulating.... These two islands, with Inchtavannach, where we were standing, were intermingled with the water, I might say interbedded, and interveined with it, in a manner that was exquisitely pleasing. There were bays innumerable, straits or passages like calm rivers, land-locked lakes, and, to the main water, stormy promontories.”

Not far from Rossdhu, on the west, is the entrance to Glen Fruin, the Glen of Weeping—a sad name, which turned out to be appropriate enough in view of the terrible scenes which happened here.

The Macgregors

The trouble began with the Macgregors.Their clan claimed descent from the third son of Alpine, King of the Scots, who lived about 787, and was therefore known by the alternative name of Clan Alpine. Their savage ways made them hated by their neighbours, and the Earls of Argyll and Breadalbane managed to obtain from the Government a right by charter to a great part of the lands belonging to the unfortunate clan. This, of course, was the signal for a fight to the death.

From the time of Queen Mary onward various warrants were given to the other clans to make war on the unfortunate Macgregors, and to extirpate them as they would vermin. They were not only to be hounded out of existence, but the other clans were forbidden to supply them with the common necessaries of life. The climax was reached in the slaughter of Glen Fruin, which arose in this wise: Two of the Macgregors, being benighted, called at the house of one of the Colquhouns, and asked shelter. This was refused. They accordingly helped themselves to a sheep and supped off mutton, for which it is alleged they offered payment. The Laird of Luss seized them and had them both executed. Then the rest of the clan arosein wrath, and, to the number of three or four hundred strong, marched down to Luss. Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, receiving warning of their advance, called together his clansmen and others, to double the number of the invaders, and advanced to meet them, doing so in Glen Fruin.

The clan of the Macgregors charged the Colquhouns with fury, and, owing to the fact that part of the opposing force was mounted, and that the horses got mired in the boggy ground, they were able, notwithstanding their inferiority of numbers, to get the best of it, whereupon they set upon their flying foes and slaughtered them mercilessly.

The event which, however, lives in memory longest is that of the action of a gigantic Macgregor, called Dugald Ciar Mohr, or the “great mouse-coloured man,” who was in charge, as their tutor, of a party of youths from Glasgow. It is said that, excited by the sound of his clansmen shouting their war-cry, or incensed by the remarks of the youths against his clan, he lost his head; anyway, he slew them all in cold blood.

The Clerk’s Stone

The great stone called Leck-a-Mhinisteir, the “minister or clerk’s stone,” is still pointed out asthe place where this horrid deed was done, and it is said the stone was bathed red in the blood of the hapless boys. This Dugald was the ancestor of Rob Roy and his tribe.

The terrible song put by Sir Walter Scott into the mouths of the Macgregor boatmen carries with it a wild cry of savagery:

Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,And Bannacha’s groans to our slogan replied;Glen Luss and Rossdhu they are smoking in ruin;And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on its side.Widow and Saxon maidLong shall lament our raid,Think of Clan Alpine with fear and with woe;Lennox and Leven GlenShake when they hear againRoderick vich Alpine dhu! ho feroe!

Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,

And Bannacha’s groans to our slogan replied;

Glen Luss and Rossdhu they are smoking in ruin;

And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on its side.

Widow and Saxon maid

Long shall lament our raid,

Think of Clan Alpine with fear and with woe;

Lennox and Leven Glen

Shake when they hear again

Roderick vich Alpine dhu! ho feroe!

After this defeat the fury and wrath of the other clans, who were in favour at Court, may be imagined, and the widows of the slain men, to the number of several score, were sent, dressed in deep mourning, and riding upon white palfreys, carrying each her husband’s bloody shirt, to demand vengeance of King James VI. on the Macgregors. The Court was then at Stirling, and surely Stirling never saw a more woesome sight! The vengeance they obtainedwas all that they could desire, for by an Act of Privy Council, dated April 3, 1603, the name of Macgregor was wiped out of the land, all those who bore it being compelled, under dire penalties, to adopt the name of some other clan; hence it was that Rob Roy was known as Rob Roy Macgregor Campbell. The Macgregors were forbidden to carry any weapons, and were otherwise penalized. The chief, Alistair Macgregor, who had led the fight at Glen Fruin, was seized, and hanged in 1604. Yet, in spite of these and other dire disabilities, the Macgregors continued to be Macgregors in heart, whatever they might call themselves, and held their heads as high as their own crest, a pine-tree. They attached themselves to the cause of King Charles in the Civil Wars, and were subsequently rewarded by the annulling of the Acts and having their rights restored to them.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

Back to Index Next