PAGE
Loudon Hill,[1]
Tinto,[10]
Cairntable,[19]
Ballagioch,[29]
Kaim Hill,[37]
Goatfell,[48]
The Earl’s Seat,[57]
Dunmyat,[67]
Ben Donich,[76]
Ben Venue,[84]
The Cobbler,[95]
Ben Lomond,[107]
Mount Misery,[118]
Ben Ledi,[130]
The Meikle Ben,[142]

OUR WESTERN HILLS.

LOUDON HILL.

There is hardly any excursion within a few miles of Glasgow that combines more of what is pleasing in history, poetry and patriotism, and varied scenery of the sweetest kind than a trip to Loudon Hill. Either the South-Western or the Joint Line, from St. Enoch, takes the traveller to Kilmarnock, or “Old Killie,” as it is pettingly called by the Kilmarnockians, a place that is suggestive of St. Marnock in the eighth century, Burns at the end of last century, and bonnets in the present. The line now takes him past Galston, where there is to be had a view of the well-trimmed hedges, characteristic of the roads on the Loudon estate, and the plantations of magnificent trees, which from their age—at least a century—tell that Scotland had proprietors fond of planting before the time of Dr. Johnson. And here is to be seen, rising among the greenery of “Loudon’s bonnie woods and braes,” which Tannahill sings so sweetly of, the palatial-looking towers of Loudon Castle, that has been not inaptly called the Windsor of Scotland. It is said that here were signed the Articles of Union between England and Scotland, beneath the branches of a gigantic yew tree, which yew tree is also memorable from the fact—for this at least is a fact—that James, second Earl of Loudon, addressed letters to it, when secretly communicating with his lady during the period of his banishment—“To the Gudewife, at the Old Yew Tree, Loudon, Scotland.”

The old churchyard of Loudon nestles in a quiet nook by the wayside, which has been the burying-place for nearly 400 years of the Loudon family, a family which, in its first Earl, Chancellor Loudon, and oftener than once since, has done good service to the cause of liberty. Here also lie the remains of the gifted but unfortunate Lady Flora Hastings, who is said to have died of a broken heart on account of a cruel and unfounded slander raised against her by one of the ladies of the bedchamber of H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent.

The traveller by the train which reaches Newmilns at one o’clock will get the help of a brake (if so inclined) as far as Darvel.

It was doubtful weather when we started, and the leaden clouds drove over the sky in heavy masses, “one long drift of rugged gloom”—but it is a waste of time to pay any attention to the weather in this country, one has only to go on and take its buffets and its rewards “with equal thanks.” Presently there appeared a bit of blue sky no larger than one’s hand, not even enough to make the Highlandman’s well-known nether garment, which soon spread over the heavens, and in the course of a few minutes the sun’s beams straggled though the lovely green foliage, making golden patches among the roadside flowers, and the wild ferns, and causing the long grass to sparkle as if all the diamonds of Brazil had been scattered over it.