Hardly more than twenty miles from the populous heart of Glasgow lies
a parish of which no notice is to be found in the guide-books. No
show-place is supposed to be there, and no tourist route runs through
it, and so, though almost within hearing of the hum of a great city,
the strip of country between mountain and loch remains all but as
primitive in its rustic simplicity as it was a hundred years ago. A
century ago, indeed, the district may have been better known than it
is to-day, if notoriety be regarded as a distinction; for every corrie
in the hillsides and every burnside hollow, where a little wooding
afforded concealment, appears then to have been the scene of illicit
distilling operations; and the raids of the excise and military in
search of “sma’ stills” were both frequent and famous. With this
exception the parish has been allowed to slumber on in happy obscurity
since the days of the old clan feuds and the cattle-liftings of its
neighbours, the wild Macgregors.
Nevertheless, unknown though it may be, and unfrequented by “the
Sassenach” as in the days of Rob Roy himself, this quiet loch-shore has
a history stirring enough, and memories of its own. Situated just on
the old Highland line, the district must frequently at all periods have
been the scene of warlike episodes. Regarding the tastes and pursuits
of its ancient inhabitants there remains small doubt. The memorial of a
peaceful enough enterprise, it is true, seems crystallised in the name
of the parish--the parish of St Ronan’s Cell, as it reads translated.
Midway, it is said, on his journey from Kilmarnock in Ayrshire to
Kilmaronaig on Loch Etive, that famous missionary priest of the early
Church thought it worth his while to tarry a space in the district
in order to teach the rude inhabitants peace. But, to judge by the
later events of history, the task would seem to have had but doubtful
results. The prevailing names, at the present hour, of the people in
the district--Galbraith, Macfarlane, M’Kean--recall the circumstances
of less orderly times. In the stalwart farmers’ sons guiding the plough
and feeding the cattle about the steadings there to-day, one sees the
lineal descendants of clansmen who once held their own on the loch-side
by the primitive _coir a glaive_--the title of the strong arm. To
keep these turbulent vassals in order, the Earls of Lennox found it
necessary to hold three castles in the neighbourhood.
Nor has the strath been without a share in the outstanding events of
history. This loch-shore it was which witnessed the failure of Argyle’s
ill-advised attempt at rebellion in 1685. Here, barring his progress,
beyond the streamlet in the clachan of the parish, the Protestant Earl,
after his long march among the western lochs, first came within sight
of the Royal troops. Here, that night, his camp-fires were left burning
to deceive his opponents; and it was on the hills behind that his
little army finally lost its way, broke up, and dispersed amid the bogs
and the darkness.
A romantic story of that most romantic of episodes, the Rebellion of
1745, also belongs to the district. The most powerful family in the
strath at that time, as, indeed, it had been for generations, was one
of the name Buchanan. This family owned two mansions and estates at
no great distance from each other, and from the larger of these they
took their familiar title, Buchanans of the Ross. Whether the head
of the house of that date had personally taken part in the Jacobite
rising, or had incurred suspicion of Jacobite sympathies, need not be
inquired into, but, upon the final overthrow of the Stuart cause in the
spring of 1746, it can be understood that he, in common with others
in his position, was willing enough to demonstrate his loyalty to the
Government of King George. The opportunity for doing so which occurred
to him, however, involved a breach of laws which above all others were
held inviolably sacred by the Highlanders--the laws of hospitality.
The tradition of the district has to be relied upon for the story. By
this tradition it would appear that among the fugitives upon whose head
a price was set, after Culloden, was the Marquis of Tullibardine, elder
brother of the Duke of Athole. Being hard pressed by the search-parties
which were everywhere scouring the country, this nobleman, it is
said, betook himself to Buchanan of the Ross, with whom he had been
upon terms of friendship, and besought temporary asylum. This favour
Buchanan granted readily enough, and apparently in all good faith;
but no sooner was the unfortunate refugee secure under his roof than
he intimated the fact to the nearest military post. The natural
consequence was an immediate visit of the soldiery and the arrest of
the fugitive.
Here the story becomes uncanny. The victim of misplaced confidence was
being dragged across the threshold, when, it is said, recovering from
surprise at the unheard-of treachery, his Highland rage and indignation
reached the blazing point, and, turning upon his host, he hurled out
the imprecation, “There’ll be Murrays on the braes of Athole when
there’s ne’er a Buchanan at the Ross!”
This was the last of the Marquis, so far as the district was concerned,
but it was by no means, in the eyes of the dwellers there, the last of
his “curse.” Strangely enough, and, whether in fulfilment of the fierce
prophecy or not, only a few decades had passed when the race at the
Ross, so far as the male line was concerned, actually died out, and, as
if to complete the result, upon two occasions since then the estates
have passed to other hands through female heirs.
[Illustration]
In the early decades of the present century the master of the
place was an Edinburgh advocate, Mr Hector Macdonald, and under his
hospitable roof again and again was entertained no less a guest than
the author of “Waverley.” It is not difficult to understand, apart from
the congenial society of his host, Scott’s attraction to the house.
The natural beauty of the place, if nothing else, must have been a
continual delight to one so keenly alive as he was to the interest
of woodland and loch. The district around, the house itself, and the
mountains before him, besides, were teeming with memories--every glen
the home of a romance. In Ross Priory, at anyrate, he frequently
stayed, and from the local legends and colour with which his residence
supplied him he selected the materials for some of the most famous
episodes in “Rob Roy” and “The Lady of the Lake.” The use he made of
it, indeed, has invested the whole district with a new interest. All
the neighbourhood, strath and glen, glows with the reflected splendour
of his thought, a “light that never was on sea or land”; and with
the clear wind blowing fresh from mountain and loch, something seems
mingled of the wholesome mental health and vigour of the “Wizard’s”
work.
The place has changed but little since Scott last visited it, and
the wanderer by the loch’s margin may, with the atmosphere of the
past still about him, indulge in all the pleasures of reverie and
recollection undisturbed. At the present day hardly a sound is to
be heard there but the lapse of wavelets on the pebbly beach, and
the sighing of the wind through the branches of the immemorial oaks.
Occasionally, on a summer evening, when the air is still, the far-off
beat of paddles comes faintly across the lake, as the steamer threads
its passage among the islands. But for the rest of the time the call
sometimes of the peacocks on the lawn before a storm, and, at night,
the harsh cry of wild-fowl making flight for the marshes at the river’s
mouth, form the only addition to the harmony of the wind and the
waters.