This is one of the lochs without a history, although doubtless men
have lived and died, married and given in marriage, laboured, plotted,
and perhaps thieved and robbed upon its borders. It owes its presence
in our collection because of its position in an island, and that one
of the most tempting spots in the more lowland parts of Scotland. The
island of Bute, which unites with Arran and the Greater and Lesser
Cumbraes to make up a county to which Bute gives its name, lies on the
west of the Frith of Clyde, and is separated from the mainland on the
inner side by a narrow, tortuous, and picturesque channel called the
Kyles of Bute. Landing at Rothesay we find a busy, cleanly, charming
watering place, with suburbs of Craigmore and Port Bannatyne filling
up the lovely shores of Rothesay Bay, and giving from every window
enchanting peeps of water and hill, carrying the view far into the
mountainous county of Argyle. Writing of this lovely, verdant island,
David Macbeth Moir (the _Delta_ of Blackwood,) says
'each moment brought
A new creation to the eye of thought.'
So much for poetry. We may tell of Bute a more prosaic story, when a
town-lady, going, as the Glasgow people say, 'doon the watter,' asked
a lodging-house keeper in Rothesay about thunder, and received the
very satisfactory rejoinder, _more Scottice_, in question form, 'Wha
ever heard o' thunder in an island?'
Leaving Rothesay by the road near its centre, and passing the parish
kirk, Loch Fad is found about two miles out. On the south side,
forming the foreground and left of our view, the shores are low and
green, but on the other side it swells out into bolder outlines, and
may fitly claim to be a Highland loch. A curious mound crosses the
water, leading to its northern side. On this side of the pretty island
loch, Edmund Kean, in 1827, built himself a residence. From his
windows, and more especially from a summer-house placed on the height
above, there is a grand view, embracing not only the near waters of
Loch Fad, but glimpses of Rothesay Bay, and on the outer line the bold
features of Argyleshire. Over the doorway of this summer-house, the
great tragedian had those lines
'How glorious from the loopholes of retreat
To peep at such a world.'
And this concisely expresses the feeling with which a wearied man may
seek his holiday in such an island as this. True it is, that Rothesay
has a telegraph, and a post office, and a newspaper, and that in two
hours' time one can be set down in the heart of Glasgow. But the
insular charm is a great one.
'The promises of blooming spring live here,
And all the blessings of the ripening year.'
Those lines were formerly inscribed at Mount Stuart House, the
residence of the Marquis of Bute, recently burnt and rebuilt. It lies
on the Clyde shore of the island, at no great distance from
Rothesay,--indeed there are no _great_ distances anywhere in the
island--and forms one of the many beautiful drives through the island.
On the way thither the village of Ascog is passed, where on a rocky
point jutting out into the river there is a little church, and at its
end a monument to Montagu Stanley, poet, actor, artist, at one time
well known in Edinburgh society. From Mount Stuart and Ascog, and the
other houses on this side of the island, there is an extensive view of
the Frith of Clyde, on the broad waters of which there is a
never-ending panorama of steamers, yachts, and gallant vessels.