|
Hardly more than twenty
miles from the populous heart of Glasgow lies a parish of which no notice
is to be found in the guide-books. No show-place is supposed to be there,
and no tourist route runs through it, and so, though almost within hearing
of the hum of a great city, the strip of country between mountain and loch
remains all but as primitive in its rustic simplicity as it was a hundred
years ago. A century ago, indeed, the district may have been better known
than it is to-day, if notoriety be regarded as a distinction; for every
corrie in the hillsides and every burnside hollow, where a little wooding
afforded concealment, appears then to have been the scene of illicit
distilling operations, and the raids of the excise and military in search
of "sma’ stills" were both frequent and famous. With this exception the
parish has been allowed to slumber on in happy obscurity since the days of
the old clan feuds and the cattle-liftings of its neighbours, the wild
Macgregors.
Nevertheless, unknown
though it may be, and unfrequented by "the Sassenach" as in the days of
Rob Roy himself, this quiet loch shore has a history stirring enough and
memories of its own. Situated just on the old Highland line, the district
must frequently at all periods have been the scene of warlike episodes.
Regarding the tastes and pursuits of its ancient inhabitants there remains
small doubt: Langside is only one of the spots at which have been
chronicled the transactions of "the wild Macfarlane’s plaided clan." The
memorial of a peaceful enough enterprise, it is true, remains crystallised
in the name of the parish—the parish of St. Ronan’s Cell, as it reads
translated. Midway, it is said, on his journey from Kilmarnock in Ayrshire
to Kilmaronaig on Loch Etive, that famous missionary priest of the early
Church thought it worth his while to tarry a space in the district in
order to teach the rude inhabitants peace. But, to judge by the later
events of history, the task would seem to have had but doubtful results.
The prevailing names, at the present hour, of the people in the
district—Galbraith, Macfarlane, McKean—recall the circumstances of less
orderly times. In the stalwart farmers’ sons guiding the plough and
feeding the cattle about the steadings there to-day, one sees the lineal
descendants of clansmen who once held their own on the lochside by the
primitive coir a glaive—the title of the strong arm. To keep
these turbulent vassals in order the Earls of Lennox found it necessary to
hold three castles in the neighbourhood. This loch shore it was which
witnessed the failure of Argyle’s ill-advised attempt at rebellion in
1685. Here, barring his progress, beyond the streamlet in the clachan of
the parish, the Protestant Earl, after his long march among the western
lochs, first came within sight of the Royal troops. Here, that night, his
camp fires were left burning to deceive his opponents; and it was on the
hills behind that the insurgent party finally lost their way, broke up,
and dispersed amid the bogs and the darkness.
A romantic story of that
most romantic of episodes, the Rebellion of 1745, also belongs to the
district. The most powerful family in the strath at that time, as, indeed,
it had been for generations, was one of the name Buchanan. This family
owned two mansions and estates at no great distance from each other, and
from the larger of these they took their familiar title, Buchanans of the
Ross. Whether the head of the house of that date had personally taken part
in the Jacobite rising, or had incurred suspicion of Jacobite sympathies,
need not be inquired into, but, upon the final overthrow of the Stuart
cause in the spring of 1746, it can be understood that he, in
common with others in his position, was willing enough to demonstrate his
loyalty to the Government of King George. The opportunity for doing so
which occurred to him, however, involved a breach of laws which above all
others were held inviolably sacred by the Highlanders—the laws of
hospitality. The tradition of the district has to be relied upon for the
story. By this tradition it would appear that among the fugitives upon
whose head a price was set, after Culloden, was the Marquis of
Tullibardine, eldest son of the Duke of Athole. Being hard pressed by the
search-parties which were everywhere scouring the country, this nobleman,
it is said, betook himself to Buchanan of the Ross, with whom he had been
upon terms of friendship, and besought temporary asylum. This favour
Buchanan granted readily enough, and apparently in all good faith; but no
sooner was the unfortunate refugee secure under his roof than he intimated
the fact to the nearest military post. The natural consequence was an
immediate visit of the soldiery and the arrest of the fugitive. Here the
story becomes uncanny. The victim of misplaced confidence was being
dragged across the threshold, when, it is said, recovering from surprise
at the unheard-of treachery, his Highland rage and indignation reached the
blazing point, and, turning upon his host, he hurled out the imprecation,
"There’ll be Murrays on the braes of Athole when there’s ne’er a Buchanan
at the Ross!" This was the last of the Marquis, so far as the district was
concerned, but it was by no means, in the eyes of the dwellers there, the
last of his "curse." Strangely enough, and whether in fulfilment of the
fierce prophecy or not, only a few decades had passed when the race at the
Ross, so far as the male line was concerned, actually died out, and, as if
to complete the result, upon two occasions since then the estates have
passed to other hands through female heirs.
In the early decades of the
present century the master of the place was an Edinburgh advocate, a Mr.
Hector Macdonald, and under his hospitable roof again and again was
entertained no less a guest than the author of "Waverley." It is not
difficult to understand, apart from the congenial society of his host,
Scott’s attraction to the house. The natural beauty of the place, if
nothing else, must have been a continual delight to one so keenly alive as
he was to the interest of woodland and loch. The district around the house
itself, and the mountains before him, besides, were teeming with
memories—every glen the home of a romance. In Ross Priory, at any rate, he
frequently stayed, and from the local legends and colour with which his
residence supplied him he selected the materials for some of the
most famous episodes in "Rob Roy" and "The Lady of the Lake." The use he
made of it, indeed, has invested the whole district with a new interest.
All the neighbourhood, strath and glen, glows with the reflected splendour
of his thought, a "light that never was on sea or land"; and with the
clear wind blowing fresh from mountain and loch something seems mingled of
the wholesome mental health and vigour of "the Wizard’s" work. The place
has changed but little since last he visited it, and the wanderer by the
loch’s margin may, with the atmosphere of the past still about him,
indulge in all the pleasures of reverie and recollection undisturbed. At
the present day hardly a sound is to be heard there but the lapse of
wavelets on the pebbly beach, and the sighing of the wind through the
branches of the immemorial oaks. Occasionally, on a summer evening, when
the air is still, the far-off beat of paddles comes faintly across the
lake, as the steamer threads its passage among the islands. But for the
rest of the time the call sometimes of the peacocks on the lawn before a
storm, and, at night, the harsh cry of wild-fowl making flight for the
marshes at the river’s mouth, form the only addition to the harmony of the
wind and the waters. |
