The route taken by the coaches leaves Callander in a northward direction, but soon turns off westward down a narrow muddy road forbidden to motor-cars; this runs beneath the shoulder of Ben Ledi.

Ben Ledi means the Mount of God, and is believed to have been held sacred from the days when the Beltane mysteries were celebrated on it. Beltane was a Celtic festival celebrated about May 1 with fires and dances, and probably with sacrifices too. The scenery, however, is not as awe-inspiring as these weird memories would lead one to expect—in fact, for all this first part of the Trossachs’ round the traveller’s imagination must supply all the fire he needs. For instance, the very prosaic sluices erected by the Glasgow Water Company at the end of Loch Vennachar, which soon comes into view, mark the site of Coilantogle Ford, across which Roderick promised the King a safe-conduct, and where the two fought with such fury when the outlaw revealed himself.

The road passes all along the shores of Loch Vennachar, and where at the end there lies a meadow, embraced on the far side by the Finlas Water, we are at another classic spot, for this is Lanrick Mead, the meeting-place of the Macgregor clansmen. We can see very well why it should have been chosen, for it guards at its narrowest part the pass, and anyone approaching from the Callander—i.e., the Doune or Stirling direction—would be easily stopped, though it would be possible for men to come along the south side of Lochs Vennachar and Achray. The mead also commands the approach from the south via Aberfoyle, and any body of men coming down the hill on this side would be full in view. After this we arrive at the Brig o’ Turk, a small bridge over the Finlas Water. It was close by here, at a few huts marking Duncraggan, that Malise delivered up the cross to Angus. But he had done his work well.

We are now right in the Trossachs proper, and find the huge, palatial hotel which goes by that name facing little Loch Achray.

Having arrived at the junction of the roads—that is, the two principal approaches already noted—it is necessary to run over the ground from Aberfoyle before continuing the part through the Trossachs common to both routes.

Aberfoyle itself is full of associations, but they are nearly all connected with Rob Roy. It stands as a meeting-place of Highlands and Lowlands, and as such has seen many storms. The earlier part of the Forth, here known as the Laggan, runs past the town, and the old saying “Forth bridles the wild Highlandman” is full of significance. Of this district says Mr. Cunninghame Graham: “Nearly every hill and strath has had its battles between the Grahames and the Macgregors. Highlander and Lowlander fought in the lonely glens or on the stony hills, or drank together in the aqua-vitÆ houses in the times of their precarious peace.”

Far the most interesting scene laid at Aberfoyle, in all the realism of fiction, is that in Rob Roy, when Bailie Nicol Jarvie, and young Osbaldistone arrived, wearied out, seeking shelter at the primitive Clachan, and were refused because “three Hieland shentlemens” wanted the place to themselves. The landlady said her house was taken up “wi’ them wadna like to be intruded on wi’ strangers,” an objection for which there was probably strong underlying reason!

The row that subsequently took place when the stout little Bailie defended himself with the red-hot coulter of a plough is too well known to need quotation. Suffice it to say, in evidence of the truth of the story, that a coulter, traditionally said to be the very weapon, hangs on a tree outside the hotel, which bears his name, to this very day.

The pass which leads by Lochs Ard and Chon north-westward to Stronachlachar has been much used at all times, and has seen desperate forays, but none perhaps more desperate than that described in Rob Roy when the Bailie and Osbaldistone, unwillingly setting forth up it with an escort of soldiery, were attacked from the heights above by the redoubtable Helen Macgregor and her men, and very narrowly escaped death. Scott thus describes the pass:

“Our route, though leading toward the lake, had hitherto been so much shaded by wood that we only from time to time obtained a glimpse of that beautiful sheet of water. But the road now suddenly emerged from the forest ground, and, winding close by the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, reflected in still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains, huge grey rocks and shaggy banks, by which it is encircled. The hills now sank on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous, as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied and which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed merely by rolling down stones, without much possibility of offering resistance. Add to this that as the road winded round every promontory and bay which indented the lake, there was rarely a possibility of seeing a hundred yards before us.”

It was when the party had reached a spot where the path rose in zigzags and made its slippery way across the face of a steep slaty cliff that they suddenly discovered they were in an ambuscade under the command of Helen Macgregor herself. The desperate fight that followed, all in favour of the outlaws who commanded the situation; the ludicrous plight of the fat little Bailie, who, caught by the back of the coat on a projecting thorn-bush, swung in mid-air, “where he dangled not unlike the sign of the Golden Fleece over the door of a mercer in the Trongate of his native city”—are not these things writ in the ever-enduring pages of Rob Roy? More awful was the doom of Morris the Gauger, or Exciseman, who was dragged out, condemned as a spy, and drowned by the aid of a large stone bound in a plaid about his neck. “Half naked and thus manacled, they hurled him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep, with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph, above which, however, his last death shriek, the yell of mortal agony, was distinctly heard.”

The lake thus woven into the tale is supposed to be Loch Ard. The Falls of Ledard, at the north-western end, are the falls described by Scott in Waverley, as he himself has owned, though it must be confessed in so doing he lifted them from their setting. Flora MacIvor’s song—

—is descriptive of this scenery.

But the Pass of Aberfoyle has scenes of real history to tell as well as those of fiction. General Monk led his men through it after addressing a letter to the Earl of Airth, desiring him to have the woods in certain districts of Aberfoyle cut down, because they were “grete shelters to the rebels and mossers.”

In the pass, also, the Earl of Glencairn and Graham of Duchray defeated some of the Cromwellian soldiers, and, adds Mr. Cunninghame Graham in recounting the incident, “Graham of Duchray no doubt fought all the better because the Cromwellians had burnt his house the night before the action, in order to show him that it was unwise to attach too much importance to mere houses built with hands.”

Aberfoyle is supposed to be peculiarly haunted by the “little folk”—i.e., the fairies—a reputation it gained from a seventeenth-century minister, who was supposed to be in league with them. He is frequently mentioned by Scott, and the fairy knowe, opposite the hotel, on which he sank down dead, called back to the fairyland he loved so well, is still pointed out. He,

Not less interesting than the west side is the country lying east of Aberfoyle, where, at about an equal distance, is the lake of Menteith. As significant of the wildness of the place in bygone days, we may note that one Earl of Menteith declared war against “all but the kinge and those of the name of Grahame.” Menteith was from earliest times one of the five great districts into which Scotland was divided. The Earls of Menteith (Grahams) were ever at feud with the warlike Macgregors, and, as often happens, the feuds raged worst just on the borders of the Highlands, where men might attack and retreat in safety, knowing every track which led into their wild fastnesses.

The lake of Menteith is about two miles by one, and it is curious to note this is the only lake in Scotland. On it is an island, where the Earls had their residence. Another island, called Inchmahone, is, however, more interesting still. The word means “Isle of Rest,” and such it was found by the monks who lived here in ages long gone past. Ruins are left, a moulded doorway, a fine monument, to tell of their occupation, but “gone are the Augustinian monks who built the stately island church. Out of the ruined chancel grows a plane-tree, which is almost ripe. In the branches rooks have built their nests, and make as cheerful matins as perhaps the monks themselves. The giant chestnuts, grown, as tradition says, from chestnuts brought from Rome, are all stag-headed. Ospreys used to build in them in the memory of those still living. Gone are the 'Riders of Menteith’ (if they ever existed); the ruggers and the reivers are at one with those they harried. The Grahams and Macgregors, the spearmen and the jackmen, the hunters and the hawkers, the livers by their spurs, the luckless Earls of Menteith and their retainers, are buried and forgotten, and the tourist cracks his biscuit and his jest over their tombs” (Cunninghame Graham).

The “Riders of Menteith” are spoken of in history, but whether, as Mr. Graham asks, they were mortal riders or a sort of WalkÜren, sacred to the Valhalla of the district, history does not enlighten us.

Queen Mary, as a little girl of five, was brought to the island of Inchmahone after the Battle of Pinkie, and lived here for a whole year, until she went to France to be betrothed to the Dauphin. Her childish dreams beneath the great chestnuts can have contained no shadow of the stormy life and fearful end that awaited her. She was even at that time accompanied by the “four Maries” who attended on her, one of whom, Mary Hamilton, met the tragic fate of execution.

The road from Aberfoyle to the Trossachs rises very steeply past some slate-quarries. As we rise the hills come into view—Ben Ledi and Ben Venue, with Ben Lomond dominating all the landscape; Ben Voil peeping over Ben Lawers; and on the clearest days, far in the distance, Ben Nevis, Schiehallion, and many others. Far below to the right lies Loch Drunkie, and much nearer the desolate little tarn called Loch Reoichte, which signifies “frozen,” and this among them all for desolate beauty stands first. Close by the road is a drinking-fountain, called “Rob Roy’s Well,” where the tourist is invited to slake his thirst, though the real well, to which the tradition attaches, is away from the road, above the slate-quarries on Craig Vadh. On the ridge of this same Craig Vadh, by the way, are curious cairns, covering the spot where the bodies of those slain in a Border foray were found. When the road at length descends we have the pleasing duty of paying an impost, or toll, for the use of it—and by no means a low one either—and thus we come to Loch Achray and the Trossachs Hotel, and pick up the thread where it was dropped.