It is all MacGregor country, that is to say Rob Roy country. We are bound for Inversnaid, so was he. All about Lomond he had his ways, Rob Roy's prison, Rob Roy's cave, Rob Roy's grave, and all. And though there are other claims hereabout, and although Robert Bruce himself preceded Robert Roy in the cave, such is the power of the Wizard that it is the later Robert one permits to inhabit these places.
We remembered that Queen Victoria had preferred the roads to the steamer. So we left the boat at Rowardennan pier. Not to walk the pleasant ambling highways, that by some good public fortune run near the "bonny bonny banks," and, in spite of the Duke of Montrose, make the lake belong to us, to whom, of course, it does belong, but to walk to the top of the Ben.
The path, if one keeps the path, and he should, is safe, the gradation easy; an American is like to smile at the claims of long ascent of a mountain which is but 3192 feet from the sea to top. But let one wander ever little from the path, attempt to make a new and direct descent, and let one of those mists which hang so near a Scotch day actually descend upon the top of the Ben—it is not the mildest sensation to find one's foot poised just at the edge of a precipice. It is not well to defy these three thousand feet because one has climbed higher heights. Ben Lomond can do its bit. And it can furnish a panorama which the taller Ben Nevis cannot rival, cannot equal. The Castle Rocks of Stirling and of Edinburgh, on a clean clear day; nearer, Ben Ledi and Ben Venue, names to thrill a far remembrance; Ben Cruachan, bringing the Mull country from near remembrance. And farther across, pale but apparent, the mountains of Ireland. A marvel of vision.
At Inversnaid one is again with Dorothy Wordsworth. It was here or hereabouts that William dropped the package of lunch in the water. So like William! I wonder Dorothy let him carry it. It was here William saw the Highland Girl, and wrote those lovely lines of her—
"Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace
Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had; and going hence
I bear away my recompense.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our memory; feel that she hath eyes....
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold,
As I do now, the cabin small,
The lake, the bay, the waterfall;
And thee, the spirit of them all!"
And now one really begins to thrill. One is really going to Loch Katrine, to the Trossachs. The road is preferable, five miles of foot-pleasure, as against the filled coaches with perhaps "gallant grays," and certainly fellow travelers who quote and misquote the lines. No, it shall be on foot, up through the steep glen of Arklet water, out on the high open moor where the Highland cattle browse, with Ben Voirlich constantly in view, and Ben Venue coming even to meet us; with William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Coleridge walking beside us all the way. (Dorothy always called it "Ketterine," but then, she came hither seven years before "The Lady" was published.)
The old Highland fort was a perplexity to the Wordsworths. William thought it a hospice like those he had seen in Switzerland, and even later when told it was a fort Dorothy did not quite believe. It was built at the time of the Fifteen to keep caterans—of which Rob Roy was one—in subjection. And the American looks with interest because here, in his youth—which was all he ever had in truth—General Wolfe, who fell on the Heights of Abraham but won Quebec, commanded the fort of this Highland height. I could but wonder how the French travelers who throng these Scotch highways feel when they remember this victor over Montcalm. Now that they have fought together "somewhere in France," no doubt they feel no more keenly than an Englishman at Bannockburn.
There is not too much lure to keep one's mind and one's feet from Loch Katrine. There was a piper on the way, tall and kilted in the tartan of the MacGregor. (Helen MacGregor, wife of Rob Roy, was born at Loch Arklet, and across the hill in Glengyle Rob Roy was born, conveniently.) The piper piped most valiantly. I should like to have set him a "blawin'" o' the pipes with our piper on the Caledonian loch, something like the tilt which Alan Breck had with Robinoig, son of Rob Roy.
The road drops down to Stronachlachar. Through the hill defile one catches the gleam, and quickly "the sheet of burnished gold" rolls before the eye. It is more splendid than when Dorothy Wordsworth viewed it, "the whole lake appeared a solitude, neither boat, islands, nor houses, no grandeur in the hills, nor any loveliness on the shores." Poor Dorothy! She was hungry and tired, and did not know where she should lay her head. Later, next day, at the farther end, she loved it, "the perfection of loveliness and beauty."