Killin well deserves its renown in the tourist world, presenting a lovely mixture of Highland and Lowland aspects. Its two rivers make the same contrast, the leafy pools of the Lochay to be compared to the tranquillising influences that have prevailed in Loch Tay, while the untamed rapids of the Dochart suggest the wild mountain spirit dashed to foam against rocks of hard fact. But the Lochay, too, up its beautiful glen, has cascades and other features of romance such as we look for a little farther back in Lowland life; and if the people forget their Gaelic and their legends, Nature still wears her garb of bracken and heather.
A plain sign of new times is the branch railway, link in a tourist round that a few miles from Killin falls in with the line from Callander to Oban. Here, turning back Lowlandwards, the rocky wilds of Glen Ogle lead us towards the softer beauties of Loch Earn, which we shall approach from the other end. Up Glen Dochart the railway runs into the higher yet opener reach of Strath Fillan; and here for a little it has the close companionship of its rival, the West Highland line, struggling on to Ben Nevis over lofty wastes of heather. At Crianlarich the two lines cross, then they draw apart at Tyndrum, under the ridge of Ben Lui, that cradles the infant Tay, as yet unchristened, unless by its nursery name of Fillan Water, where it gambols down to swell Loch Dochart, at the foot of Ben More. By its course, along the line of the Oban railway, the Campbells must have flowed into Breadalbane from their spring at Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe. But beyond the head of Strath Fillan the streams flow to the Atlantic; and here we turn back from the Argyllshire gates of the Western Highlands.
Strath Fillan gets its name from the Irish missionary, Fillan, who became the patron saint of central Scotland, his memory preserved by a monastery that had much reverence in Breadalbane. He is, indeed, such a shadowy personage that there are said to have been two saints of the name, the other belonging to Loch Earn. St. Fillan’s pool, near Crianlarich, was a famous Highland rendezvous, used occasionally, as we have seen, for ducking objectionable persons; but its chief repute was in the cure of lunacy. The unhappy sufferer, brought here by his friends, was three times marched round a cairn from east to west—a rite of unconscious paganism—then after being immersed in the pool, he was tied up for the night in an adjacent chapel. If he managed to break loose that was a hopeful sign of his wits; but the result of this rough treatment must often have been an effectual cure for all the ills flesh is heir to. The reputation of St. Fillan’s well held out till quite recently; even now, perhaps, offerings may be secretly cast into it, or hung upon the bushes around, as pins or crossed rushes are found in the sacred wells of Cornwall. The superstition is, of course, world-wide; and deeper in the Highlands are wells still sought for pious hydropathy. To St. Fillan’s bell were also attributed supernatural properties: this and his crosier, long preserved in a family of hereditary custodians named Dewar, after wanderings as far as Canada, have come to be treasured at the Antiquarian Museum of Edinburgh.
In history, also, this fair strath has a name. Dalry, near Tyndrum, was the scene of one of Robert Bruce’s traditional exploits. Defeated at Methven, after his coronation at Scone, he had to take to the Highlands,
roving in perils and hardships like those of his unhappy descendant, Prince Charlie. At Dalry he had gathered force enough to make a stand against Macdougal, Lord of Lorn, eager to avenge on him the kindred blood of the Red Comyn. Overborne by numbers, the king retreated through a narrow pass, the mouth of which he held in person till all his men should be out of danger. Three doughty Macdougal champions, a father and two sons, having vowed to slay or take him alive, fell upon Bruce at once. The sons he cut down as they tried to drag him from his horse, then the father grasping him by the cloak so close that he could not use his sword, Bruce dashed out this man’s brains with the hilt, or with a hammer hanging at his saddle-bow. But the dying Macdougal kept such a grasp on the cloak that, to make good his escape, the king had to let it go, undoing the brooch which fastened it. Thus is said to have come into the hands of the Macdougals that Brooch of Lorn, treasured by the family to our time—an idle trophy, indeed, that was to cost them dear. In Bruce’s day of triumph he did not forget those bitter foes; then on their fall rose the Argyllshire Campbells, who have so long been Lords of Lorne.
These scenes are well known, as made accessible by the railway, that has ploughed up the memories of old feuds, and the patterns of native tartans. Less visited by rapid wheels are the wilds of Glenlyon, “crooked glen of the stones,” running westward behind Ben Lawers on the north of Loch Tay. This is notable as the longest narrow pass in Scotland, and in its lower part one of the most beautiful. Its village capital, Fortingall, lies shut in among the mountains not far from Kenmore, across Drummond Hill. The high road comes round the other side of the Taymouth meadows, entering the glen by Garth, where one of our modern princes of commerce has a seat near the ruined castle, once lair of that Stuart who earned the byname of Wolf from the bloodthirsty fierceness with which he hunted the MacIvors out of their old lairs in Glenlyon; then this house won a milder fame from General Stuart of Garth, the enthusiastic historian of Highland regiments.
Near Fortingall was at home that Campbell of Glenlyon who carried out the massacre of Glencoe, for which his descendants held themselves to be accursed. According to Robert Chambers, one of them was Rob Roy’s mother. A name of wider ill-fame is connected with Fortingall, if we believe a thin legend that makes it birthplace of Pontius Pilate, son of a Roman official quartered in the camp laid out under older strongholds ascribed to chiefs of the Fingal age. So far into the Highlands seem to have been pushed the eyries
Where Rome, the Empress of the world,
Of yore her eagle wings unfurled.