Having once more feasted our eyes on the fair prospect, and recalled to mind those and other historical associations, we proceed to descend on the east side towards the beautifully wooded glen of Menstrie. This can be done in less than half the time we took to reach the summit from Logie. It is as well to proceed for the first 50 or 60 feet with caution, for the freshness and abundance of the grass is apt to conceal the steepness of the hill at that part. Crossing a cart track which leads to a shepherd’s house up the glen of Menstrie, the only house that is visible looking northward from the summit, and keeping to the right, we soon reach the first house of the village, which is styled by the natives “Windsor Castle.” From its elaborate coat of arms, it seems to have belonged to some noble family, but, _miserabile dictu_, it is now tenanted by quite a host of the great unwashed. A popular rhyme assumes some spirit of fairyland to have formerly loved Menstrie for its rural beauty, but to have been driven away from it by the introduction of its manufacturing mills, and represents the phantom as sometimes saying pathetically at dead of night—
Oh, Alva woods are bonnie, Tillicoultry hills are fair, But when I think o’ Menstrie, It maks my heart ay sair.
But we make for the train, which is just at hand, feeling that we could willingly take the same journey at least once a year, and in another hour we are at Queen Street.
Notwithstanding the fact that it had rained for two days previously, we determined to get to the top of Ben Donich, not that it is very high, but that its central position affords far-reaching views, such as many higher hills can lay no claim to. It is in the midst of a network of inland lochs, and the range of high hills, not to call them mountains, not a hundred miles away from the better-known “Cobbler.” The ordinary way to reach it is to take the steamer to Lochgoilhead. When there, there is a temptation to follow the crowd, in the shape of the passengers for St. Catherine’s and Inveraray per the coach road, which is commonly said to be the only road out of Lochgoilhead, and which was a famous drive in the days of old John Campbell, who with every crack of his whip delighted to crack a joke at the expense of some incautiously inquisitive tourist. But we deny ourselves the pleasure of a view of Inveraray and the beautiful seat of the Macallum More, and a peep into Hell’s Glen from that end of it; so we turn up between the grocer’s shop and the Free Church.