So much, then, for the prospect which an antiquarian standing by the Well of St. Fillan would embrace within the programme of his research. If we try to form a picture of the social condition of the people who lived in the midst of this fair vale of Earn in those early days, it is a scene of continual strife we conjure up--clan fighting with clan, and one feud succeeding another. These were the days of superstitious pilgrimages, days of rooted custom and unchanging faith. So much the better for the Saint. The halo of his sanctity shines out all the more against the background of ignorance and strife. If he were to re-visit those scenes now, how much would he have to deplore! No more pilgrimages, no more belief in miracles. What a downcome from his dignity to be the patron of a golf course or the chaplain of a curling club, instead of enjoying the fame and name of the holy well. _Requiescat in pace_.
The past was not all strife, however. Traces of agriculture lead us to picture this fine strath as at one time throng with peaceful and busy life. There were, no doubt, in those warlike times intervals of peace, when the inhabitants of the glen could tend their cattle and cultivate their potatoes and corn at leisure; and whether we look back upon this land of the "mountain and the flood" as having been the nursery of our best soldiers, or as having been peopled by a race rendered strong and manly by a simple mode of life, the present prospect of our Highland glens cannot but fill us with sad reflection when we behold the process of emigration and depopulation still going on, and when we see that ere long the only links with the past of a once strong and hardy race of people will be the mere traces of their cultivation, the ruins of their once populous hamlets, and the grave-stones in their old burying-grounds.
It is true there is a compensating process going on. For while one regrets the disappearance of the old thatched houses of the primitive village of St. Fillans and the migration of their youthful life to the city, the rise of the modern villa along the loch side speaks of the growth of a temporary population known as the "summer visitors." It is not likely that their peaceful pursuits--their climbing and pic-nic expeditions, their regattas and loch illuminations, will be considered to be as worthy to be recorded in a future "Book of Chronicles" as the feuds and raids of the past. Still, it is to be hoped that this land of "brown heath and shaggy wood" may even in this innocent way minister to the rearing of a healthy manhood and womanhood, and continue to be the nursery of that muscular body and brave spirit which in the past have made the name of Caledonia great.