Queen Mary, as a little girl of five, was brought to the island of Inchmahone after the Battle of Pinkie, and lived here for a whole year, until she went to France to be betrothed to the Dauphin. Her childish dreams beneath the great chestnuts can have contained no shadow of the stormy life and fearful end that awaited her. She was even at that time accompanied by the “four Maries” who attended on her, one of whom, Mary Hamilton, met the tragic fate of execution.
Last nicht there were four Maries,
This nicht there’ll be but three:
There was Mary Beaton and Mary Seaton,
And Mary Carmichael and me.
The road from Aberfoyle to the Trossachs rises very steeply past some slate-quarries. As we rise the hills come into view—Ben Ledi and Ben Venue, with Ben Lomond dominating all the landscape; Ben Voil peeping over Ben Lawers; and on the clearest days, far in the distance, Ben Nevis, Schiehallion, and many others. Far below to the right lies Loch Drunkie, and much nearer the desolate little tarn called Loch Reoichte, which signifies “frozen,” and this among them all for desolate beauty stands first. Close by the road is a drinking-fountain, called “Rob Roy’s Well,” where the tourist is invited to slake his thirst, though the real well, to which the tradition attaches, is away from the road, above the slate-quarries on Craig Vadh. On the ridge of this same Craig Vadh, by the way, are curious cairns, covering the spot where the bodies of those slain in a Border foray were found. When the road at length descends we have the pleasing duty of paying an impost, or toll, for the use of it—and by no means a low one either—and thus we come to Loch Achray and the Trossachs Hotel, and pick up the thread where it was dropped.
[CHAPTER V]
THE HEART OF THE TROSSACHS
As we have heard the Trossachs signifies “bristled territory,” a suitable name enough, and as they have been described by the master himself, there would be little use in trying to improve upon his words, which are as follows: