The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 31

The village should be a health resort.

Started by eight. A lovely morning, a mackerel sky, with patches of blue. Heather hills all around, some covered with dark waving pine forests.

But what shall I say about the scenery 'twixt Bankfoot and Dunkeld? It is everywhere so grandly beautiful that to attempt to describe it is like an insult to its majesty and romance.

Now suppose the reader were set down in the midst of one of the finest landscape gardens, in the sweetest month of summer, and asked to describe in a few words what he saw around him, would he not find it difficult even to make a commencement? That is precisely how I am now situated.

But to run through this part of the country without a word would be mean and cowardly in an author.

Here are the grandest hills close aboard of us that we have yet seen-- among them Birnam; the most splendid woods and trees, forest and streams, lakes and torrents, houses and mansions, ferns and flowers and heather wild. Look where I will it is all a labyrinth, all one maze of wildest beauty, while the sweet sunshine and the gentle breeze sighing thro' the overhanging boughs, combined with the historical reminiscences inseparable from the scenery, make my bewilderment pleasant and complete.

Yes! I confess to being of a poetic turn of mind, so make allowance, _mon ami_, but--go and see Dunkeld and its surroundings for yourself--

"Here Poesy might woke her heaven-taught lyre, And look through nature with creative fire The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides; The woods, wild scattered, clothe their ample sides.

Th' outstretching lake, embosomed 'mong the hills, The eye with wonder and amazement fills.

The Tay meandering sweet in infant pride, The Palace rising by its verdant side, The lawns wood-fringed in nature's native taste, The hillocks dropt in nature's careless haste; The arches striding o'er the newborn stream, The village glittering in the noontide beam."

The above pa.s.sage, from the poet Barns, refers to the village and scenery of k.u.mon, but it equally well describes the surroundings of Dunkeld.

Pitlochrie is our anchorage to-night.

The little town, when I first approached it, seemed, though picturesque and lovely in the extreme, almost too civilised for my gipsy ideas of comfort; the people had too much of the summer-lodging caste about them; there were loudly dressed females and male mashers, so I felt inclined to fly through it and away as I had done through Perth.

But the offer of a quiet level meadow at the other end of this village of villas, surrounded by hills pine-clad to their summits, and hills covered with heather, the maiden-blush of the heather just appearing on it, tempted me, and here I lie.

Met many delightful people, and still more delightful, happy children.

The wandering tourist would do well to make his headquarters here for at least a week. There is so much to be seen all around. It is indeed the centre of the land of romance and beauty.

Started next day through the Pa.s.s of Killiecrankie. Who has not heard of the wild wooded grandeur of this wonderful pa.s.s, or of the battle where the might of Claverhouse was hurled to the ground, and the hero himself slain?

It was a sad climb for our horses, but the pa.s.s is fearfully, awesomely grand. One cannot but shudder as he stands on the brink of the wooded chasm, over which the mounted troopers were hurled by the fierce-fighting Highlanders.

Just after leaving the pa.s.s, on the right is a meadow, in the centre of which is a stone, supposed by most tourists to mark the spot where the great Claverhouse fell. It is not so, but a preaching stone, where outdoor service was held in days of yore.

Behold up yonder, high above it on the hillside, the granite gables of "Ard House" peeping out above the trees. Near here was Claverhouse slain, shot while his horse was stooping to drink some water.

Made our midday halt in front of Bridge of Tilt Hotel. Were visited by many good people. Brakes laden with tourists pa.s.s and repa.s.s here all day long, for the scenery around here is far famed; splendid forests and wild rugged mountains, lochs and waterfalls--everything Highland.

A wretched kilted piper strutted round the Wanderer after dinner, playing pibrochs. I like the bagpipes and I love the Highland garb, but when the former is wheezy and shrieking, when the latter is muddy and ragged, and the musician himself pimply-faced and asthmatical, it takes away all the romance.

I saw this miserable piper afterwards dancing and shrieking. He was doing this because an ostler belaboured his bare legs with a gig whip.

I was glad to hear the real Highland bagpipes soon after. The wild music came floating on the autumn air from somewhere in the pine forest, and I could not help thinking of McGregor Simpson's grand old song, the March of the Cameron Men--

"I hear the pibroch sounding, sounding, Deep o'er the mountains and glen, While light springing footsteps are trampling the heath - 'Tis the march of the Cameron men."

The day is fiercely hot, but a breeze is blowing and the roads are good.

On leaving Blair Athol the way continues good for a time; we catch a glimpse of the Duke's whitewashed castle on the right, among the trees and wood.

But we soon leave trees behind us, though on the left we still have the river. It is swirling musically round its bed of boulders now; in winter I can fancy how it will foam, and rage, and rush along with an impetuosity that no power could resist!

We are now leaving civilisation behind us--villas, trees, cultivated fields, and even houses--worth the name--will for a time be conspicuous only by their absence.

Some miles on, the road begins to get bad and rough and hilly, rougher by far than the roads in the Wolds of York or among the banks of Northumberland. It gets worse and worse, so rough now that it looks as if a drag-harrow had been taken over it.

We are soon among the Grampians, but the horses are wet and tired. Even Pea-blossom, hardy though she be, is dripping as if she had swum across a river, while poor Corn-flower is a ma.s.s of foam, and panting like a steam engine.

We were told we ought to go _past_ the Highland hamlet of Struan. We find now, on enquiring at a wayside sheiling, that Struan is out of our way, and that it consists of but one small inn and a hut or two, where accommodation could hardly be found for man or beast.

So we go on over the mountains.

About a mile above Struan, we stop to let the horses breathe, and to gaze around us on the wild and desolate scene. Nothing visible but mountains and moorland, heath, heather, and rocks, the only trees being stunted silver birches.

Close beside the narrow road, so close indeed that a swerve to one side, of a foot or two, would hurl the Wanderer over the rock, is the roaring river Garry. Its bed is a chaos of boulders, with only here and there a deep brown pool, where great bubbles float and patches of frothy foam, and where now and then a great fish leaps up. The stream is a madly rushing torrent, leaping and bounding from crag to crag, and from precipice to precipice, with a noise like distant thunder.

We see an occasional small covey of whirring grouse. We see one wriggling snake, and a lizard on a heather stem, and we hear at a distance the melancholy scream of the mountain whaup or curlew,--a prolonged series of shrill whistling sounds, ending in a broken shriek-- but there are no other signs of life visible or audible.

Yes, though, for here comes a carriage, and we have to go closer still-- most dangerously close--to the cliff edge, to give it room to pa.s.s.

The horses are still panting, and presently up comes a Glasgow merchant and his little boy in Highland dress.

He tells us he is a Glasgow merchant. Anybody would tell anyone anything in this desolate place; it is a pleasure to hear even your own voice, and you are glad of any excuse to talk.

He says,--

"We are hurrying off to catch the train at Blair Athol."

But he does not _appear_ to be in much of a hurry, for he stays and talks, and I invite him and his child up into the saloon, where we exchange Highland experiences for quite a long time.

Then he says,--

"Well, I must positively be off, because, you know, I am hurrying to catch a train."

I laugh.

So does the Glasgow merchant.

Then we shake hands and part.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

SNOW-POSTS--A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE--DALWHINNIE--A DANGER ESCAPED--AN UGLY ASCENT--INVERNESS AT LAST.

"The rugged mountain's scanty cloak Was dwarfish shrubs of birch and oak, And patches bright of bracken green, And heather red that waved so high, It held the copse in rivalry; But where the lake slept deep and still, Dank osiers fringed the swamp and hill."

Scott.