Sit here in the stern of the boat, and let her drift out on the
glassy waters of the loch. After the long sultry heat of the day it
is refreshing to let one’s fingers trail in these cool waters, and
to watch the reflection of the hills above darkening in the crystal
depths below. Happy just now must be the speckled trout that dwell in
the loch’s clear depths; and when the fiery-flowering sun rolls ablaze
in the zenith there are few mortals who will not envy the cool green
domain of the salmon king. But now that the sunset has died away upon
the hills, like “the watch-fires of departing angels,” a breath of air
begins mysteriously to stir along the shore, and from the undergrowth
about the streamlet that runs close by into the loch, blackbird and
water-ousel send forth more liquid pipings. The cuckoos, that all day
long have been calling to each other across loch and strath, now with a
more restful “chuck! chu-chu, chu, chuck!” are flitting, grey flakes,
from coppice to coppice, preparatory to settling for the night The
grouse-cocks’ challenge, “kibeck, kibeck, kibeck!” can still be heard
from their tourney-ground on the moraine at the moor’s edge; and from
the heath above still comes the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl” of the
whaup. These sounds can be heard far off in the stillness of the dusk.
But listen to this mighty beating of the waters, and look yonder! From
the shadow of the hazels on the loch’s margin comes the royal bird of
Juno, pursuing his mate. In his eager haste he has left the water, and
with outstretched neck, beating air and loch into foam with his silver
wings, he rushes after her. She, with the tantalising coyness of her
sex, has also risen from the water, and, streaming across the loch,
keeps undiminished the distance between herself and her pursuer. At
this, finding his efforts vain, he gives up the chase, subsiding upon
the surface with a force which sends the foam-waves curling high about
his breast. Disdainfully he turns his back upon the fair, and, without
once inclining his proud black beak in her direction, makes steadily
for the shore. This, however, does not please the lady. She turns,
looks after her inconstant lover, and, meeting with no response,
begins slowly to sail in his direction. Suddenly again at this, with
snowy pinions erect, neck curved gallantly back, and the calm waters
foaming round his breast, he surges after her, ploughing up the loch
into shining furrows. Again the coy dame flees, again and again the
same amorous manœuvres are gone through, and when night itself falls,
the splendid birds will still be dallying over their long-certain
courtship. No plebeian affair is the mating of these imperial denizens
of the loch. Seldom do mortals witness even this wooing of the swans.
More commonplace, though not, perhaps, less happy, are the three brown
ducks and their attentive drake, which having, one after another,
splashed themselves methodically on the flat stone by the margin of the
loch, now swim off in a string for home. Young trout are making silver
circles in the water as they leap at flies under the grassy bank; and
the keen-winged little swallows that skim the surface, sometimes tip
the glassy wave with foot or wing.
Before the daylight fades there are beautiful colours to be seen on
shore. The fresh young reeds that rise at hand like a green mist out
of the water deepen to a purple tint nearer the margin. The march dyke
that comes down to the shallows is covered with the red chain-mail
of a small-leaved ivy; and the gean-tree beside it, that a week or
two ago raised into the blue sky creamy coral-branches of blossom,
still retains something of its fragile loveliness. On the stony meadow
beyond, the golden whinflower is fading now, but is being replaced by
the paler yellow splendour of the broom. The rich blush-purple of some
heathy banks betrays the delicate blossom of the blaeberry, and patches
of brown show where the young bracken are uncurling their rusty tips.
And silent and fair on the mountain descends the shadowy veil of night.
Darkening high up there against the sapphire heaven, the dome-topped
hill, keeping watch with the stars, has treasured for twenty centuries
strange memories of an older world. Whether or not, in the earth’s
green spring, it served as a spot of offering for some primeval race,
no man now can tell. But long before the infant Christ drew breath
among the far-off Jewish hills, grave Druid priests ascended here to
offer worship to their Unknown God. On the holy Beltane eve, the First
of May, the concourse gathered from near and far, and as the sun, the
divine sign-manual set in the heavens, arose out of the east, they
welcomed his rising with an offering of fire. From sea to sea across
dim Scotland, from the storm-cloven peaks of Arran to the sentinel dome
of the Bass, could be seen this mountain summit; and from every side
the awed inhabitants, as they looked up and beheld the clear fire-jewel
glittering on Ben Ledi’s brow, knew that Heaven had once more favoured
them with the sacred gift of flame. For the light on the mountain-top,
like the altar fires of the Chaldean seers on the hills of the East of
old, was understood to be kindled by the hand of God; every hearth in
the land had been quenched, and the people waited for the new Bal-tein,
or Baal-fire from Heaven, for another year.
Rude these people may have been--though that is by no means
certain,--but few races on earth have had a nobler place of worship
than this altar-mountain, which they called the Hill of God.
The climber on Ben Ledi to-day passes, near the summit, the scene
of a sad, more modern story. On the shoulder of the mountain lies a
small, dark tarn. It is but a few yards in width, yet once it acted
a part in a terrible tragedy. Amid the snows of winter, and under a
leaden heaven, a funeral party was crossing the ridge, when there was
a crash; the slow wail of the pipes changed into a shriek of terror,
and a hundred mourners, with the dead they were carrying, sank in the
icy waters to rise no more. That single moment sufficed to leave sixty
women husbandless in Glen Finglas below. No tablet on that wind-swept
moor records the half-forgotten disaster; only the eerie lapping of the
lochlet’s waves fills the discoverer with strange foreboding; and at
dusk, it is said, the lonely ptarmigan may be seen, like souls of the
departed, haunting the fatal spot.
On a knoll at the mountain foot, where the Leny leaves Loch Lubnaig,
lies the little Highland burial-place to which the clansmen were
bearing their dead comrade. Only a low stone wall now remains round
the few quiet graves; but here once stood the chapel of St Bride, and
from the Gothic arch of its doorway Scott, in his “Lady of the Lake,”
describes the issuing of a blithesome rout, gay with pipe-music and
laughter, when the dripping messenger of Roderick Dhu rushed up and
thrust into the hand of the new-made groom the Fiery Cross of the
Macgregors--
“The muster place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!”
Well did the poet paint the parting of bride and groom; and to-day on
the mossy stones of the little burial-place are to be read the wistful
words of many who have bid each other since then a last good-bye.
Surely the arcana of earth’s divinest happiness is only opened by the
golden key of love. Sweet, indeed, must be that companionship which
unclasps not with resignation even when sunset is fading upon the hills
of life, and the shadows are coming in regretful eyes, but would fain
stretch forth its yearnings through the pathways of a Hereafter. Simple
and lacking excitement may be the lives of the folk who dwell under
these hills, but something of the sublime surely is latent in hearts
whose hopes extend beyond a time when heaven and earth shall have
passed away.