The view, even half way up, is not to be despised, the beauty of which consists in its “breadth,” as an artist would say. The meadows, with their green frames of hedges, may be compared to small cabinet pictures—lovely, but small. This is life-like—a broad cartoon from the hand of nature. The sward rises and rolls along in undulations like the slow heave of an ocean wave. Handsome trees of all sorts are scattered around, under whose ample shade cattle can, and, to judge from the brown and bare patches around their trunks, evidently do, repose in the heat of the day. Following up the stream, which in its higher reach is called the Laggan Burn, we come on two smaller cascades, and after a pleasant and comparatively easy ascent up the fretted terraces of trap, reach the summit, 1894 feet above the sea level, 3 miles to the north of the station we have left, and at the meeting point of Killearn, Campsie, and Strathblane parishes.
The climb to the top will well repay a visit, as will readily be believed when we say that the eye embraces a range of scenery extending all the way from Ben Lomond to Tinto. The prospect before us is of the most beautiful description; the vast basin of the Clyde from Kilpatrick to Dechmont lying stretched at our feet, with Glasgow, Paisley, and many other towns and villages scattered on its breast; while the line of the horizon is formed by the Gleniffer, Fereneze, and Cathkin braes. Immediately below us is the valley of the Blane, or Warm River; and we cannot help acknowledging that Strathblane (the valley of the Warm River) is a word that is peculiarly descriptive of the valley, which is sheltered in almost every direction from the violence of the winds. The probability is that, with part of Campsie (the crooked strath, according to some), it was at some long-past date a fresh-water loch, and that subsequently the barriers in the direction of Loch Lomond were broken down, and the valley drained accordingly. The nature of the soil contributes to establish this opinion, consisting largely of sand, gravel, and other comminuted fragments of the neighbouring rocks. The valley of the Blane, as it winds its way westward from the bare and desolate conical hill of Dunglass, 400 feet high, on the east, to the conical and finely wooded hill of Dunquaich, on the west, also 400 feet high, is one of the prettiest in Scotland, quite equal to and not unlike the drive between Crieff and St. Fillans, which Dr. John Brown, in his “Horæ Subsecivæ,” calls the finest 13 miles in Scotland.
Looking south we have to the left a view of Lennox Castle, the seat of a branch of the ancient earldom of Lennox, rebuilt in the boldest style of Norman architecture, nearly 500 feet above the level of the sea, and commanding a most extensive and picturesque prospect; and a little to the west are the gentle undulations of the Craigallion table land, with the venerable Mugdock Castle, of unascertained antiquity, the scene of many bacchanalian orgies on the part of the Earl of Middleton and his associates, who, after the restoration of Charles II., were seeking to subvert the liberties of their country.
But Mugdock, which to most of us suggests a magnificent water supply, has a history long anterior to the Restoration period. All the authorities agree that about the year 750 a great battle was fought at Maesydauc between the invading Picts under Talargan, one of their kings, and the Cymric Britons under their king Tendeor. After a bloody battle, the Picts were defeated and their king slain. Dr. Skene, than whom there is no higher authority, identifies this battlefield with the present Mugdock, in the parish of Strathblane. The field of battle can be traced with but little difficulty. The Cymric army was posted on the high ground on Craigallion, then part of Mugdock, above and to the east and west of the Pillar Craig, with outposts stationed on the lower plateau to the north. There they awaited the Picts, who came up Strathblane valley through Killearn from the north on their way to the interior of Cumbria or Strathclyde. Near the top of the Cuilt Brae, in a line with the Pillar Craig, there is a rock still called Cat Craig, i.e., Cad Craig, meaning the “Battle Rock.” In their efforts to dislodge the Cymric army, whom they could not leave in their rear, the Picts, doubtless, had penetrated thus far, and here the battle began. It was continued all over Blair or Blair’s Hill, i.e., “the Hill of Battle”—the rising ground on Carbeth Guthrie which commands the valley of the Blane—and Allereoch or Alreoch, i.e., “the King’s Rock,” was certainly so named from being the place where King Talargan fell when the defeated Picts were being driven back to the north-west. The standing stones to the south-east of Dungoyach probably mark the burial-place of Cymric or Pictish warriors who fell in the bloody battle of Mugdock.
Immediately opposite is Craigmaddie Wood and Moss, with the far-famed Auld Wives’ Lifts, which are well worthy of a visit themselves, not only on account of their position and their size, but also of the uncertainty of their origin. Some regard them as the work of witches, which is about as good a way of getting out of a difficult as the Highland minister had, who always said when he came to some knotty point, “But this is a mystery, my brethren; we will just boldly look it in the face and then pass on.” Some regard them as the work of glacial action, and yet others as a gigantic Druidical altar, on which in some far-off period the dark rites of Pagan worship may have been celebrated. We tried, but with little success, to give our mind to this difficult problem, and finding the air “vara halesome”—quite too much so, indeed—we made short work of some sandwiches, which, fortunately for us, were thicker than those we get at Lang’s.
Time should be taken to have a look at the prehistoric wall above Craigbarnet, and also at the great stone, “Clach Arthur,” on the brow of the hill, said to mark the site of one of King Arthur’s victories. The remains of the wall are still perfectly visible, and can be traced as far as the Ballagan Burn. From the height above that burn a good view is had of the wall running on westward towards Dungoin.
Earl’s Seat is flanked east and west by two hills, and it sends off from its southern slope not only Ballagan Burn, up which we came, but Fin Burn, passing down through Fin Glen, a little to the east. We make this our route homeward, which, though less known than its neighbour Campsie, or, more correctly, Kirkton Glen, is little inferior in attraction, and for at least its length, its volume of water, and its cascade is much superior. As we descend we have time to have a look at Crichton’s Cairn, immediately above Campsie, so called, according to one account, in memory of a local Hercules of that name, who, after taking a wager to carry up a load of meal to the top, succeeded in doing so, but died immediately after; and according to another, in memory of a smuggler of that name who was overtaken and killed there by gaugers. There is still another account of the matter, viz., that Crichton committed suicide up there by hanging himself. “If this is the true version, it is one of the most determined cases on record, as the poor man would require to take the hanging apparatus with him.” Below the cairn is the well-known Craw Road, between Fintry and Campsie, by which in 1745 a detachment of Highlanders came south to join the Chevalier, and a visit to the bend of which is supposed by some to be “good for the whooping cough.”
Getting to the bottom of Fin Glen, and keeping to the left, we soon find ourselves in the far-famed Campsie Glen, with its Craigie Linn, about 50 feet high, and its Jacob’s Ladder. The little churchyard across the burn is worth a visit with its ruined belfry, its graves of Bell, the traveller; Muir, the Campsie poet; and Collins, the parish minister, who was murdered coming home from a meeting of the Glasgow Presbytery in 1648 by a neighbouring laird who wanted to marry his wife. The tombstones are chiefly flat, reminding one of the times, not so long ago, when the graves of the dead were watched during the night by the parishioners in turn to prevent the eager student of anatomy stealing the bodies away. In former times funerals were conducted on different principles from those in fashion to-day. In the neighbourhood of Campsie when the head of a family died the custom at one time prevailed of issuing a general invitation to the parishioners to attend the funeral. The guests were usually accommodated in a barn, where refreshments, consisting of cake, bread and cheese, ale and whisky, were served in no stinted way. The proceedings began early in the forenoon, but the “lifting,” as the removal of the coffin from the house was popularly styled, did not take place till well on in the afternoon. As a rule the coffin was carried to the place of interment on hand-spokes. After a modest refreshment in the adjoining inn, we make for the station, and reach Glasgow after a most enjoyable outing of six hours.