Aberfoyle
Aberfoyle itself is full of associations, but they are nearly all connected with Rob Roy. It stands as a meeting-place of Highlands and Lowlands, and as such has seen many storms. The earlier part of the Forth, here known as the Laggan, runs past the town, and the old saying “Forth bridles the wild Highlandman” is full of significance. Of this district says Mr. Cunninghame Graham: “Nearly every hill and strath has had its battles between the Grahames and the Macgregors. Highlander and Lowlander fought in the lonely glens or on the stony hills, or drank together in the aqua-vitæ houses in the times of their precarious peace.”
Far the most interesting scene laid at Aberfoyle, in all the realism of fiction, is that in Rob Roy, when Bailie Nicol Jarvie, and young Osbaldistone arrived, wearied out, seeking shelter at the primitive Clachan, and were refused because “three Hieland shentlemens” wanted the place to themselves. The landlady said her house was taken up “wi’ them wadna like to be intruded on wi’ strangers,” an objection for which there was probably strong underlying reason!
The row that subsequently took place when the stout little Bailie defended himself with the red-hot coulter of a plough is too well known to need quotation. Suffice it to say, in evidence of the truth of the story, that a coulter, traditionally said to be the very weapon, hangs on a tree outside the hotel, which bears his name, to this very day.
IN THE HEART OF THE TROSSACHS.
The Pass of Aberfoyle
The pass which leads by Lochs Ard and Chon north-westward to Stronachlachar has been much used at all times, and has seen desperate forays, but none perhaps more desperate than that described in Rob Roy when the Bailie and Osbaldistone, unwillingly setting forth up it with an escort of soldiery, were attacked from the heights above by the redoubtable Helen Macgregor and her men, and very narrowly escaped death. Scott thus describes the pass:
“Our route, though leading toward the lake, had hitherto been so much shaded by wood that we only from time to time obtained a glimpse of that beautiful sheet of water. But the road now suddenly emerged from the forest ground, and, winding close by the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, reflected in still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains, huge grey rocks and shaggy banks, by which it is encircled. The hills now sank on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous, as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied and which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed merely by rolling down stones, without much possibility of offering resistance. Add to this that as the road winded round every promontory and bay which indented the lake, there was rarely a possibility of seeing a hundred yards before us.”