The Genius of Scotland Part 19

The sun is sinking behind the western hills--the evening shadows are resting in the vallies, while the tops of those craggy heights around us are still burning with the last rays of departing day. We wander towards the southern part of the parish, with feelings subdued by the magnificent scenery which everywhere meets our gaze, and the solemn stillness which reigns among the mountains, broken only by the tinkling of a small stream winding its way to the lake, as if seeking a home in its bosom, like the soul of a true Christian, which is ever tending onward to the infinite and immortal. At length, while the sweet and long continued "gloaming" of the Scottish summer envelopes everything in its soft and dubious light, we reach the remains of a large cairn, a mound of stones and earth, called "Carn-na-Cheasoig," the cairn of St. Kessog.

Here then, according to tradition, lies the dust of St. Kessog, who is said to have suffered martyrdom near the site of this cairn, in the sixth century, and who anciently was venerated as the guardian saint of Luss. Was St. Kessog a true martyr? We trust he was, and can easily imagine the cruel but triumphant death of the holy man. At such an hour, and in such a scene, with the shadow of these great, sky-pointing mountains, resting on our spirits, we might almost believe anything; anything, at least, lofty and heart-stirring. It is not surprising that the Highlanders are superst.i.tious: but it is surprising that they are not more religious. An infidel or a fanatic among the hills seems an impossibility. Nor are the inhabitants of these high regions inclined either to scepticism or fanatacism. But they are ignorant of Christianity in its purer forms; and hence are easily subjected to superst.i.tious fears. But we are not yet among the Highlanders; for Luss and the regions around are naturally subjected to Lowland influences.

Next morning we pa.s.s over the lake in a small boat to Rowardennan, on the eastern sh.o.r.e, whence we commence the ascent of Benlomond, which rises to a height of something more than three thousand feet. The distance from Rowardennan to the top is generally reckoned about six miles. Wending along the sides of the mountain we gradually ascend to the bare and craggy summit, but not without resting here and there, and stopping to gaze upon the expanding landscape, as it spreads further and further towards the distant seas. We are somewhat fatigued, but how refreshing the mountain breeze, and how exhilarating the magnificent scenery which opens on every side, and absolutely reaches from sea to sea! There, beneath us, like a belt of liquid light, stretches the long and beautiful Lochlomond, sparkling under the rays of the sun, fringed with hills, rocks, and woods, and adorned with green isles, reposing on its heaving bosom, like gems of emerald chased in gold. Far off are the islands of Bute and Arran, and nearer the fertile Strath-Clutha, through which flows the river Clyde, adorned with villages, castles and country-seats, the city of Glasgow, covered with a misty vapor, the whole of Lanarkshire, the city of Edinburgh, and the vast and delightful tract of country beyond, the Firth of Forth, Stirling Castle, and the links of the Forth gliding in peaceful beauty through its green and wooded vale. To the north a scene presents itself of wild and varied grandeur, long ranges of Alpine heights, mighty crags towering to the sky, dark lakes, and deep-cloven ravines, wild and desolate moors, straggling forests, and rich secluded vales. Near us rises the h.o.a.ry Benvoirloich; and further north, among inferior mountains, Bencruachan and Bennevis lift their lofty heads. Taking a wider range we get a distant glimpse of the wide Atlantic, and the coast of green Erin, the mountains of c.u.mberland, and the German Ocean, washing the north-eastern coasts of Scotland. But the eye rests, as if by enchantment, upon the magnificent mountain scenery to the north, inferior only in grandeur and beauty to the mountains of Switzerland.

"Crags, knolls and mounds, confusedly hurled, The fragments of an earlier world; And mountains that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land."

How elevating such a position, and such scenery. How the soul dilates and rejoices, as if it were a part of the mighty spectacle. Ah! this were a place for angels to light upon, and hymn the praise of that infinite Being "whose are the mountains, and the vallies, and the resplendent rivers."

But it is time to descend, though it would be pleasant, doubtless, to linger here till sunset, and see those mountain heights shining like stars in the departing radiance, while all beneath was covered with shadow; and if the evening were still, to listen to the mingled murmur which ever ascends through the calm air, from a region of streams and torrents.

Coasting along the lake we reach Inversnaid mill at its upper extremity, and securing some Highland ponies, little tough s.h.a.ggy fellows, sure-footed and self-willed, we ramble through a lonely, rock-bound glen, the scene of the feats of Rob Roy Macgregor. In one of the smoky huts of this glen we are shown a long Spanish musket, six feet and a half in length, said to have belonged to the famous outlaw, whose original residence was in this lonely region. We also pa.s.s the hut in which Helen Macgregor, his wife, was born and brought up. By forgetting a few years, one can easily imagine the whole region filled with wild 'kilted' Highlanders, shouting the war-cry of Macdonald, Glengarry, or Macgregor. The spirit of these wild clans has been admirably depicted by Sir Walter Scott. Nothing can be more spirited than his "Gathering of Clan-Gregor," which in this rough glen, seems to gather a peculiar intensity of meaning.

"The moon's on the lake, the mist's on the brae, And the clan has a name that is nameless by day; Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalich!

Our signal for fight that from monarchs we drew, Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo; Then haloo, Gregalich, haloo Gregalich!

Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchuirn and her towers, Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours; We're landless, landless, Gregalich!

But doomed and devoted by va.s.sal and lord, Macgregor has still both his heart and his sword; Then courage, courage, courage, Gregalich!

If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles, Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles; Then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, Gregalich!

While there's leaves in the forest, or foam on the river, Macgregor despite them, shall flourish forever!

Come then, Gregalich! Come then, Gregalich!

Through the depths of Lochkatrine the steed shall career, O'er the peak of Benlomond the galley shall steer, And the rocks of Craig-Royston, like icicles melt, Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt!

Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalich!"

We reach Lochkatrine, a narrow sheet of water, ten miles in length, winding, in serpentine turns, among the huge mountains which guard it on every side. This, and the wild glen called the Trosachs, are embalmed in the poetry of Sir Walter Scott, whose ethereal genius has imparted to them a charm which they would not otherwise possess. Wild and grand the scenery certainly is, secluded so far among the mountains, and guarded so wondrously by

"Rocky summits, split and rent,"

which, gleaming under the rays of the morning sun, appeared to the eye of poetical inspiration,

"Like turret, dome or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as paG.o.d ever deck'd, Or mosque of Eastern minaret."

And not only so, but richly adorned with forest-trees and wild flowers among the rifted rocks and the "smiling glades between," lovelier by far than ever met any but a poet's eye.

"Boon nature scattered free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountains' child.

Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorne and hazel mingled there; The primrose, pale and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Foxglove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Group'd their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain.

With boughs that quaked at every breath Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft the ash and warrior oak, Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And higher yet the pine tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, When seemed the cliffs to mount on high, His boughs athwart the narrow'd sky.

Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glistening streamers waved and danced, The wanderer's eye could barely view The summer heaven's delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream."

The scenery at the east end of Lochkatrine, where the lake narrows, like a placid river, under the eye of Benvenue, the lower parts of which are richly wooded, is exceedingly beautiful. Through the whole of this glen, the Highland guides point out the localities and incidents mentioned in the "Lady of the Lake," as if it were a historical verity. Such is the power of genius, which "gives to airy nothings a local habitation and a name."

"Oh! who would think, in cheerless solitude, Who o'er these twilight waters glided slow, That genius, with a time-surviving glow, These wild lone scenes so proudly hath imbued!

Or that from 'hum of men' so far remote, Where blue waves gleam, and mountains darken round, And trees, with broad boughs shed a gloom profound, A poet here should from his trackless thought Elysian prospects conjure up, and sing Of bright achievement in the olden days, When chieftain valor sued for beauty's praise, And magic virtues charmed St. Fillan's spring; Until in worlds where Chilian mountains raise Their cloud-capt heads admiring souls should wing Hither their flight, to wilds whereon I gaze."

Leaving Lochkatrine, we pa.s.s in a south-easterly direction, through Callendar to Auchterarder, a parish famous in the annals of the Free Church of Scotland, and thence, travelling through a delightful country, reach "the bonnie town o' Perth," which lies so charmingly on the banks of the Tay. Surrounded by some of the finest scenery in Scotland, with Kinnoul House and Kinfauns Castle on the one side, and Scone, the old palace in which the kings of Scotland were crowned, on the other, cl.u.s.tering with memories of the olden time, and withal being a well-built city, with some venerable churches and handsome public edifices, Perth is one of the most interesting places in Scotland.

Moreover, it was anciently the capital of the kingdom, and contains a good many relics of its former glory. Here the doctrines of the Reformation early took root, and some of the citizens suffered martyrdom for Christ's sake. Helen Stark and her husband, for refusing to pray to the Virgin Mary, were condemned to die. She desired to be executed with her husband, but her request was refused. On the way to the scaffold, she exhorted him to constancy in the cause of Christ, and as she parted with him, said, "Husband, be glad; we have lived together many joyful days, and this day of our death we ought to esteem the most joyful of them all, for we shall have joy forever; therefore, I will not bid you good night, for we shall shortly meet in the kingdom of Heaven." After the men were executed, Helen was taken to a pool of water yard by, when, having recommended her dear children to the charity of her neighbors, her infant having been taken from her breast, "she was drowned, and died," says the historian of the town, "with great courage and comfort."

Perth rejoices in the possession of two beautiful "Commons," or "Inches," as they are called, green as emerald, and bordered by long avenues of magnificent trees. The Tay gleams through the verdant foliage, and is seen winding, in serene beauty, far down among the rich meadows and smooth lawns which adorn its banks. Behind it are the Sidlaw hills, and looming up, in the distance, the blue ridges of the Grampians. The lands around it are highly cultivated, and support a numerous race of farmers, many of whom have grown rich from the produce of the soil.

But the shadows of evening are beginning to fall upon the landscape; to-morrow is "the rest of the holy Sabbath," and a comfortable "'tween and supper-time" awaits us at the house of a friend at some distance from Perth, which we must immediately leave.

CHAPTER XVI.

Sabbath Morning-- 'The Sabbath,' by James Grahame--Sketch of his Life--Extracts from his Poetry--The Cameronians--'Dream of the Martyrs,' by James Hislop--Sabbath Morning Walk--Country Church--The old Preacher--The Interval of Worship--Conversation in the Church-yard--Going Home from Church--Sabbath Evening.

Sabbath morning dawns upon us, bright and clear, and all around a hushed stillness pervades the air.

"With silent awe I hail the sacred morn, That scarcely wakes while all the fields are still; A soothing calm on every breeze is borne, A graver murmur echoes from the hill, And softer sings the linnet from the thorn; The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.

Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn!

The sky a placid yellow l.u.s.tre throws; The gales that lately sighed along the grove Have hushed their drowsy wings in dead repose; The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move, So soft the day when the first morn arose."

Thus sang Leyden, the celebrated scholar, poet, and traveller, who, like all true sons of Scotland, revered the holy Sabbath, regarding it as the best of days, the sweetest, purest, calmest of the seven! The same images, borrowed not from Leyden, but from nature and his own heart, are used by Grahame, in his delightful poem of 'The Sabbath,' a production not without defects, but one of the most popular in Scotland.

"How still the morning of the hallowed day!

Mute is the voice of rural labor, hush'd The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.

The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath Of tedded gra.s.s, mingled with fading flowers, That yestermorn bloomed waving in the breeze.

Sounds the most faint attract the ear--the hum Of early bee, the trickling of the dew, The distant bleating, midway up the hill.

Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud.

To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale; And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen; While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals The voice of psalm, the simple song of praise."

The Rev. James Grahame, the author of 'The Sabbath,' 'The Birds of Scotland,' 'Biblical Pictures,' and so forth, was born in 1765, in the city of Glasgow. He studied law, but afterwards took orders in the Church of England, and officiated as curate in the counties of Gloucester and Durham. He is said to have been a popular and useful preacher. Possessed of great simplicity of character, purity of morals, and kindness of heart, he won the affections of all his parishioners.

Suffering from ill health, he gave up his curacy, and returned to Scotland, where he acted, we believe, as a school-teacher. His poems, particularly that of 'The Sabbath,' attracted much attention in his native land, which he dearly loved. A deep religious vein pervades the whole. Attached to the ritual of his own church, he could yet appreciate the solemn 'hill worship' of the Covenanters. His descriptions of Scottish scenery are accurate and beautiful. His Sabbath is the Sabbath of Scotland. All its pictures are drawn from real life. His verse may seem prosaic at times, but it is melodious as a whole. Nothing can be more natural or agreeable, in its easy gentle flow. Moreover, it often sparkles with original turns of thought, and felicitous expressions.

An interesting anecdote is told of Grahame in connection with the publication of 'The Sabbath.' He had finished the poem, and sent it to the press unknown to his wife. When it was issued he brought her a copy, and requested her to read it. As his name was not prefixed to the work, she did not dream that he had anything to do with it. As she went on reading, the sensitive author walked up and down the room. At length she broke out in praise of the poem, and turning to him said: "Ah! James, if you could but produce a poem like this." Judge then of her delighted surprise when told that he was its author. The effect upon her is said to have been almost overwhelming.

After describing the solemn and delightful worship of G.o.d's house, particularly the music, ascending in 'a thousand notes symphonious,' he touchingly adds:

"Afar they float, Wafting glad tidings to the sick man's couch: Raised on his arm, he lists the cadence close, Yet thinks he hears it still: his heart is cheered; He smiles on death; but, ah! a wish will rise-- Would I were now beneath that echoing roof!

No lukewarm accents from my lips would flow; My heart would sing: and many a Sabbath day My steps should thither turn; or wandering far In solitary paths, where wild flowers blow, Then would I bless his name who led me forth From death's dark vale, to walk amid those sweets-- Who gives the bloom of health once more to glow Upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye."

His description of the shepherd boy's Sabbath worship among the hills is a pa.s.sage of great beauty.

"It is not only in the sacred fane That homage should be paid to the Most High; There is a temple, one not made with hands, The vaulted firmament. Far in the woods, Almost beyond the sound of city chime, At intervals heard through the breezeless air; When not the limberest leaf is seen to move, Save when the linnet lights upon the spray When not a flow'ret bends its little stalk, Save when a bee alights upon the bloom-- Then rapt in grat.i.tude, in joy, and love The man of G.o.d will pa.s.s his Sabbath noon; Silence his praise; his disembodied thoughts Loosed from the load of words, will high ascend Beyond the empyrean.

Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne, The Sabbath service of the shepherd boy!

In some lone glen, when every sound is lulled To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill, Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry, Stretched on the sward, he reads of Jesse's Son; Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold, And wonders why he weeps: the volume closed, With thyme sprig laid between the leaves, he sings The sacred lays, his weekly lesson conned With meikle care beneath the lowly roof, Where humble love is learnt, where humble worth Pines unrewarded by a thankless state.

Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen, The shepherd boy the Sabbath holy keeps, Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands Returning homeward from the house of prayer."

The hill worship of the Covenanters is also described with much beauty and pathos.

"With them each day was holy, every hour They stood prepared to die, a people doomed To death--old men, and youths, and simple maids.