Coming down once more to the level ground, a good walker, who is also a painstaking hunter of flowers, will not go unrewarded. All along our course there are the yellow blossoms of the buttercup family on the harder ground, daisies in the meadows, on the moor the bluebells hanging their delicate heads, each appearing a little lonely and pale; and there are also the exquisite waxlike blossoms of the bilberry, growing quite abundantly, and looking quite as beautiful as any of the rare heaths of the conservatory.
We find our way to the station through and among some wrought-out lime quarries, the roughness of our route now reminding us of what must have been the state of the road to Sorn, a little further down the valley, when travelled on by one of our Scottish kings on his way from Glasgow, and which he found to be so disagreeable that he said, if he wished to “give the devil a job,” he would send him to Sorn in winter. What thoughts crowd upon us as we review the work of the last hour or two on our homeward journey; thoughts as to the probable, or established history of rock and plant, of mountain and moor! And what an insight do we gain into our ignorance as we have to acknowledge that to many of the problems we must subscribe ourselves “agnostic,” or without knowledge. In two and a half hours we reach the well-paved streets of Glasgow.
BALLAGIOCH.
Given those three things, a good day, a liking for a walk over a Scottish moor, and a small bag over the shoulder well filled with eatables, could one do better than set out to make the acquaintance of this comparatively unknown hill? The most interesting route, and the most direct, leaving the least work for the pedestrian, is by the Caledonian Railway, from the Central, to Clarkston Toll. From there we avail ourselves of a coach to Eaglesham (kirk hamlet), not knowing what the necessities of the day may be. In doing so, our mind goes back to the time when Professor John Wilson (Christopher North) as a boy spent some of his happiest days hereabout on the banks of the Earn, and somewhat farther back to the time when the Romans had a village near to the Sheddings of Busby. On arriving at Eaglesham we make for its highest point, and there find the road that leads to Ballagioch, some 2½ miles off. On the left there are three reservoirs, the Picketlaw, the mid dam, and the high dam—the last a broad sheet of water which used to drive the wheel of the village cotton mill. On the right, about 100 yards from the village, we pass the road that leads to Moorhouse, the birthplace of Robert Pollock, the author of “The Course of Time.”
A mile from the village of Eaglesham the road begins to rise. And here we are reminded that if the early summer is the time of hope, it is the time of strife as well. For here is, first, a dead mole; and secondly, a couple of living larks. The mole and a brother of his had been fighting for a wife; he had been wounded, his body ripped up, and a part of his entrails eaten by the conqueror. The larks, a couple of male birds, were now fighting, and the weaker was being worsted; and if he had stuck to his guns as did the mole he would in all probability have met with the mole’s fate. Halfway up the ascent on the left is the road to Lochgoin, but we keep on the highway to Kilmarnock. As we near the top we leave behind us, at the height of 800 feet above the level of the sea, almost every sign of cultivation, and enter upon the moor, in which the villagers have the right of casting peats and pasturing a single cow. When we have reached the summit nearly another mile of table-land lies before us, and Ballagioch is close upon us on the right. The hill rises before us to the height of perhaps 200 feet from the road, but our Ordnance map tells us that it is 1094 from the level of the sea. This, however, is no great height for a Scottish hill, and therefore we require no “guide, philosopher, and friend” to show us the way to the top; we simply need to remember the short but pithy address of the Highland officer to his men in the face of the foe, “There’s the enemy, gentlemen, up and at them.”
Though the hill is not very high, yet with the exception of Misty Law, near Lochwinnoch, and the Hill of Staik, on the borders of Lochwinnoch, Largs, and Kilbirnie, it is the highest eminence in the county of Renfrew. It is principally composed of the trap rock, which is prevalent in the district, but several specimens of barytes have been found in its vicinity, and a species of stone which bears extreme heat without cracking, and has therefore been found to be well adapted for the construction of furnaces and ovens. It is also said to contain silver and lead ores, but if so, there is no outward appearance to show that this is correct.
The prospect from the summit, however, more than repays any disappointment which we may have on this score. It commands a most extensive and beautiful series of landscapes, embracing many counties within its scope. On the one hand are the moors of Fenwick, formerly called New Kilmarnock, with its memories of William Guthrie, its first minister (1644), author of “The Christian’s Great Interest,” and from whom the parish takes its chief fame. Beyond are the fertile woods and fields of Ayrshire, with Loudon Hill, near which the battle of Drumclog was fought, and an extensive sweep of the Ayrshire coast, with the lonely and conical Ailsa Craig and the jagged peaks of Arran in the distance. On a clear day the view in this direction commands the land of Burns. On the other hand, we have in sight the grand valley of the Clyde, with Glasgow and Paisley, and many other towns and villages in its capacious bosom, while away in the dim distance we have a perfect wilderness of mountain-tops. A little to the south and west is the farm of Greenfields, with 1000 acres—somewhat of a misnomer, however, for all around is a waste of peat. As we pass the farmhouse we see a herd of lowing cattle, and hear the song of chanticleer in the farmyard. And as we move along we come upon a fresh upheaval of earth, the work of Master Mole, and still more frequently upon the burrow of a rabbit, with tufts of downy fur strewing the neighbourhood. Near this there is a road that leads to lonely but historically and otherwise interesting Lochgoin, where John Howie wrote the “Scots Worthies,” where there are still to be seen many things which will rejoice the heart of the Christian patriot and the antiquary.
The loch itself is of little consequence, being entirely artificial, and was first formed in 1828 to supply the mills at Kilmarnock with water; but a little beyond, a few yards into the parish of Fenwick, is the venerable house which has been the abode of the Howie family for so many centuries (since 1178), and where they still retain all the primitive, pious, and pastoral habits which distinguished their Waldensian ancestry. This house during the times of persecution frequently afforded an asylum to those who, for conscience sake, were obliged to flee from their homes, to men like Cargill, Peden, Richard Cameron, and Captain Paton, which rendered it so obnoxious that it was twelve times plundered, and the inmates forced to take refuge in the barren moors around. Indeed, standing on Ballagioch we can see the homes of not a few who can trace their connection with ancestors who suffered in the “killing times.”