|
Sit here in the stern of
the boat, and let her drift out on the glassy waters of the loch. After
the long sultry heat of the day it is refreshing to let one’s fingers
trail in these cool waters, and to watch the reflection of the hills above
the darkening in the crystal depths below. Happy just now must be the
speckled trout that dwell in the loch’s clear depths; and when the
fiery-flowering sun is ablaze in the zenith there are few languishing
mortals who will not envy the cool green domain of the salmon king. But
now that the sunset has died away upon the hills, like "the watch-fires of
departing angels," a breath of air begins mysteriously to stir along the
shore, and from the undergrowth about the streamlet that runs close by
into the loch, blackbird and water-ousel are sending forth more liquid
pipings. The cuckoos, that all day long have been calling to each other
across loch and strath, now with a more restful "chuck! chu-chu, chuck!"
are flitting, grey flakes, from coppice to coppice, preparatory to
settling for the night. The blackcocks’ challenge, "kibeck, kibeck, kibeck!"
can still be heard from their tourney-ground on the moraine at the
moor’s edge; and from the heath above still comes the silvery
"whorl-whorl-whorl" of the grouse. These sounds can be heard far off in
the stillness of the dusk.
But listen to this mighty
beating of the waters, and look yonder! From the shadow of the hazels on
the loch’s margin comes the royal bird of Juno, pursuing his mate. In his
eager haste he has left the water, and with outstretched neck, beating air
and loch into foam with his silver wings, he rushes after her. She, with
the tantalising coyness of her sex, has also risen from the water, and,
streaming across the loch, keeps undiminished the distance between herself
and her pursuer. At this, finding his efforts vain, he gives up the chase,
subsiding upon the surface with a force which sends the foam-waves curling
high about his breast. Disdainfully he turns his back upon the fair, and,
without once inclining his proud black beak in her direction, makes
steadily for the shore. This, however, does not please the lady. She
turns, looks after her inconstant lover, and, meeting with no response,
begins slowly to sail in his direction. Suddenly again at this, with snowy
pinions erect, neck curved gallantly back, and the high waves curling from
his breast, he surges after her, ploughing up the loch into shining
furrows. Again the coy dame flees, and again and again the same amorous
manoeuvres will be gone through; and when night itself falls, the splendid
birds will still be dallying over their long-certain courtship. No
plebeian affair is the mating of these imperial denizens of the loch.
Seldom do mortals witness even this wooing of the swans.
More commonplace, though
not, perhaps, less happy, are the three brown ducks and their attentive
drake, which having, one after another, splashed themselves methodically
on the flat stone by the margin of the lake, now swim off in a string for
home. Young trout are making silver circles in the water as they leap at
flies under the grassy bank; and the keen-winged little swallows that skim
the surface sometimes tip the glassy wave with foot or wing.
Before the daylight fades
there are beautiful colours to be seen on shore. The fresh young reeds
that rise at hand like a green mist out of the water deepen to a purple
tint nearer the margin. The march dyke that comes down to the shallows is
covered with the red chain-mail of a small-leaved ivy; and the gean-tree
beside it, that a week or two ago raised into the blue sky creamy
coral-branches of blossom, still retains something of its fragile
loveliness. On the stony meadow beyond, the golden whinflower is fading
now, but is being replaced by the paler yellow splendour of the broom. The
rich blush-purple of some heathy banks betrays the delicate blossom of the
blaeberry, and patches of brown show where the young bracken are uncurling
their rusty tips.
And silent and fair on the
mountain descends the shadowy veil of night. Darkening high up there
against the sapphire heaven, the dome-topped hill, keeping watch with the
stars, has treasured for twenty centuries strange memories of an older
world. Whether or not, in the earth’s green spring, it served as a spot of
offering for some primeval race no man now can tell. But long before the
infant Christ drew breath among the far-off Jewish hills, grave Druid
priests ascended here to offer worship to their Unknown God. On the holy
eve of the First of May the concourse gathered from near and far, and as
the sun, the divine sign-manual set in the heavens, arose out of the east,
they welcomed his rising with an offering of fire. From sea to sea across
dim Scotland, from the storm-cloven peaks of Arran to the sentinel dome of
the Bass, could be seen this mountain summit; and from every side the awed
inhabitants, as they looked up and beheld the clear fire-jewel glittering
on Ben Ledi’s brow, knew that Heaven had once more favoured them with the
sacred gift of flame. For the light on the mountaintop was
understood to be kindled by the hand of God, as were the altar fires of
the Chaldean seers on the hills of the East of old; every hearth in the
land had been quenched, and the people waited for the new Bal-tein, or
Baal-fire from Heaven, for another year. Rude these people may have
been—though that is by no means certain; but few races on earth have had a
nobler place of worship than this altar-mountain, which they called the
Hill of God.
The climber on Ben Ledi
to-day passes, near the summit, the scene of a sad, more modern story. On
the shoulder of the mountain lies a small, dark tarn. It is but a few
yards in width, yet once it acted a part in a terrible tragedy. Amid the
snows of winter, and under a leaden heaven, a funeral party was crossing
the ridge, when there was a crash; the slow wail of the pipes changed into
a shriek of terror; and a hundred mourners, with the dead they were
carrying, sank in the icy waters to rise no more. That single moment
sufficed to leave sixty women husbandless in Glen Finglas below. No
tablet on that wind-swept moor records the half-forgotten disaster; only
the eerie lapping of the lochlet’s waves fills the discoverer with strange
foreboding; and at dusk, it is said, the lonely ptarmigan may be seen,
like souls of the departed, haunting the fatal spot.
On a little knoll at the
mountain foot, where the Leny leaves Loch Lubnaig, lies the little
Highland burial-place to which the clansmen were bearing their dead
comrade. Only a low stone wall now remains round the few quiet graves; but
here once stood the chapel of St. Bride, and from the Gothic arch of its
doorway Scott, in his "Lady of the Lake," describes the issuing of a
blithesome rout, gay with pipe-music and laughter, when the dripping
messenger of Roderick Dhu rushed up and thrust into the hand of the
new-made groom the Fiery Cross of the Macgregors—
The muster place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!
Well did the poet paint the
parting of bride and groom; and to-day on the mossy stones of the little
burial-place are to be read the wistful words of many who have bid each
other since then a last good-bye. Surely the arcana of earth’s divinest
happiness is only opened by the golden key of love. Sweet, indeed, must be
that companionship which unclasps not with resignation even when sunset is
fading upon the hills of life and the shadows are coming in regretful
eyes, but would fain stretch forth its yearnings through the pathways of a
Hereafter. Simple and lacking excitement may be the lives of the folk who
dwell under these hills, but something of the sublime surely is latent in
hearts whose hopes extend beyond a time when heaven and earth shall have
passed away. |
