VIII
MENTEITH
There might now be looked for a chapter on the Trossachs district that makes the most famous corner of Perthshire; but indeed we have been in it for some time back. This was the chief arena of Rob Roy’s exploits. At Inversnaid, where the stones of the English fort, finished in spite of him, have gone to build farmhouses and bothies, he had his early home. Many a time he must have driven a herd, honestly or otherwise come by, over Ben Venue by the pass of Beal-nam-bo.
The dell upon the mountain’s crest
Yawned like a gash on warrior’s breast.
The Goblin Cave here seems to have been made too much of in Scott’s imagination, like John Ridd’s Doone houses and the Water-slide on Exmoor; but the whole region is dotted with hiding-holes that sometimes bear Rob’s name. Ellen’s Isle, that shrine of pilgrims, may often have served him as a refuge. Many a time must he have tramped by this chain of lovely lakes, in no more appreciative humour than a certain drover who, being admonished on his way back from Stirling market that in London he could have sold his beasts for twelve pounds a head, sullenly replied that if he could take Loch Lomond to an unmentionable region it would fetch “a pound a tot.”
The gracious name of Loch Katrine is in some spellings degraded into Loch Cateran, as lair of robbers; but different derivations have been suggested, for one, a root found in other Highland names, Urrin, which denotes a Celtic hell. That was the native idea of a rough and bristly country through which cattle-driving made awkward work, with the owners of a stolen herd close at the heels of the spoilers. The Highlandmen were slow to understand what strangers could admire in this country, visited by occasional pilgrims of the picturesque, even before Scott gave it such fame that Dr. Graham can record how twenty-two carriages had stopped in one day at the chief inn of Callander, and how a London artist had “actually” spent a whole winter working among those wild mountains. This minister of Aberfoyle wrote an early guide-book, entitled Sketches of Perthshire; but he hardly gets farther into the Highlands than the southern edge, widely advertised by the Lady of the Lake’s popularity, when Waverley and Rob Roy were still in the womb of time.
Cold-hearted Southrons may look with curious or complimentary eyes upon this half-Highland region, which to its natives was peopled not only with carnal but with ghostly enemies, albeit of more romantic form and quickened by warmer fancy than in the case of those exhaled from flatter claylands. The most familiar spirits of the Highlands were the “Men of Peace” or “Good People” who lived underground in green hillocks, which by spectacled archæologists have been connected with the conical huts of a race of pigmy aborigines, whose shy prowlings in flesh and blood came to pass for fairy tales. The abductions and other tricks ascribed to them in later days may well have been the doings of caterans, walking in the darkness of superstition. Like the Eumenides, the Highland fairies were to be spoken of by good names, in dread of their turn for impish mischief. They had a favourite trick of carrying off mortals to their underground dwellings, and held special power over unbaptised children, who must be guarded against them night and day. Traditions of their pranks are common all over Scotland, from the leading cases of True Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin, whose body and soul stood in sore jeopardy among them.
Once in every seven years
They pay the teind to hell,
And I’m so fair and fu’ o’ flesh,
I fear ’twill be mysel’.
In Menteith the “Men of Peace” seem to have been particularly active. One of Dr. Graham’s predecessors as minister of Aberfoyle, the Rev. Robert Kirke, not only wrote a book testifying his belief in them so late as the Reformation period, but was understood to have fallen under their power. His tombstone may be seen by the church, but the story went that he lived on in fairyland after an ineffectual appearance to a kinsman, who neglected to follow his instructions for disenchanting him. When the fairies could deal so masterfully with the very minister, it may be supposed what their power was over thoughtless young folk, now and then drawn into unhallowed love affairs with this uncanny race. A rash mortal who sought their acquaintance had only on Hallow Eve to walk nine times widershins round one of the conical green hillocks so common in this district; then a door would open for the adventurer, henceforth lost to parents, harsh master, or cruel sweetheart. Dr. Graham relates one legend that had a homelier end.
A young man roaming one day through the forest observed a number of persons all dressed in green, issuing from one of those round eminences which are commonly accounted fairy hills. Each of them in succession called upon a person by name to fetch his horse. A caparisoned steed instantly appeared; they all mounted and sallied forth into the regions of air. The young man, like Ali Baba in the Arabian Nights, ventured to pronounce the same name, and called for his horse. The steed immediately appeared; he mounted, and was soon joined to the fairy choir. He remained with them for a year, going about with them to fairs and weddings, and feasting, though unseen by mortal eyes, on the victuals that were exhibited on those occasions. They had one day gone to a wedding where the cheer was abundant. During the feast, the bridegroom sneezed. The young man, according to the usual custom, said “God bless you!” The fairies were offended at the pronunciation of the sacred name, and assured him that if he dared to repeat it, he would be punished. The bridegroom sneezed a second time. He repeated his blessing; they threatened more tremendous vengeance. He sneezed a third time; he blessed him as before. The fairies were enraged; they tumbled him from a precipice; but he found himself unhurt, and was restored to the society of mortals.