Bridge of Allan is a sweet wee town, by the banks of the river, embosomed in trees, quite a model modern watering-place.
We travel on through splendid avenues of trees, that meet overhead, making the road a leafy tunnel, but the morning sun is shimmering through the green canopy, and his beams falling upon our path make it a study in black and white.
The road is a rolling one, reminding us forcibly of Northumbrian banks and Durham braes.
The trains here seem strangely erratic, we meet them at every corner. They come popping out from and go popping into the most unlikely places, out from a wood, out of the face of a rock, or up out of the earth in a bare green meadow, disappearing almost instantly with an eldritch shriek into some other hole or glen or wood.
Through the city of Dunblane, with its Ruined cathedral, by narrow roads across country fifteen miles, till we reach Blackford, and as there are to be games here to-morrow, we get run into a fine open meadow behind Edmund’s Hotel, and bivouac for the night.
Both my coachman and my valet were Englishmen, and it would be something new for them, at all events.
The meadow into which I drove was very quiet and retired. The games were to be held in an adjoining rolling field, and from the roof of the Wanderer a very good view could be had of all the goings-on.
On looking at my notes, written on the evening before the Highland gathering, I find that it was my doggie friend Hurricane Bob who first suggested my stopping for the games.
“Did ever you see such a glorious meadow in your life?” he seemed to say, as he threw himself on his broad back and began tumbling on the sward. “Did you ever see greener grass,” he continued, “or more lovely white clover? You must stay here, master.”
“Well, I think I will stay, Bob,” I replied.