From the castle battlements the “bonny links of Forth” can be seen winding and looping and doubling on themselves, and also the old bridge, which was the key to the Highlands and the only dry passage across the Forth for centuries. This bridge is even older than any existing part of the castle. It has seen many desperate skirmishes, most notable of which was that of 1715, when the Duke of Argyll, with only 1,500 men, held here in check thousands of Highlanders. Here we must leave Stirling, without noting the rest of the old buildings, as this is no guide-book, and the city is merely looked upon as the key to the Trossachs and the scene of some of the drama enacted in The Lady of the Lake.
[CHAPTER III]
BY THE ROUTE OF THE FIERY CROSS TO BALQUHIDDER
Few indeed of those who come up comfortably by rail to Callander, and step at once to a seat on a waiting four-horsed coach, adorned by a scarlet-coated driver and tootling horn, ever think of arriving a day sooner and exploring northward along the continuation of the single line which has brought them so far, or, better still, of going on northward by road through the Pass of Leny to beautiful little Strathyre for the night. Yet they miss much by not doing so, for at Balquhidder, a little beyond Strathyre, is the grave of Rob Roy and the reputed graves of his wife and son, while up the Pass of Leny itself was carried the fiery cross, so that the story of The Lady of the Lake is hardly complete without a visit to it.
Few more beautiful passes are to be seen than Leny. The dashing stream which runs in a wooded cleft below the road is exactly what one expects a Scottish stream to be. The brown peat-water breaks in cascades over huge grey weather-worn stones, or lies in deep clear pools. The irregularities of its course reveal new beauties at every turn: the dripping green ferns, for ever sprinkled with the spray, hang quivering over the agate depths, and the emerald moss, saturated like a sponge, softens the sharp angles of stones. Tufts of free-growing heather, large as bushes, add colour to the scene, and the slender white stems of the birches rise gracefully amid the gnarled alders and dark-needled firs. The Falls of Leny are reached by a footpath from the road.
Angus, carrying the cross, was confronted by the stream, which divided him from the chapel of St. Bride, whose site is now marked by a small graveyard just where the water issues from Loch Lubnaig. He had to plunge in, panting and hot as he was.
He stumbled twice—the foam splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced by.
Then, gaining the shore, he faced the chapel entrance just as a gay crowd came forth escorting a newly-wedded pair.