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The Trosachs wound as now between gigantic walls of rock tapestried with broom and wild roses: Foyers came headlong down through the birchwood with the same leap and the same roar with which he still rushes to Loch Ness; and, in defiance of the sun of June, the snowy scalp of Ben Cruachan rose, as it still rises, over the willowy islets of Loch Awe.
Armagh and Cashel came in the wake of Tara, and Cruachan was soon to follow. Driven from the high places, the obdurate Priests of Bel took refuge in the depths of the forest and in the islands of the sea, wherein the Christian anchorites of the next age were to replace them.
It gave me not only the simple illusion that I saw again the regimentals of my native country many a friend and comrade among them in the shelter of the Castle of Inverlochy but it roused in me a spirit very antique, very religious and moving too, as the music of his own land must in every honest Gael. "Cruachan for ever!" I said lightly to M'Iver, though my heart was full.
Far as the eye could reach appeared a succession of lofty and barren mountains, rising sheer out of the water, on the calm surface of which their fantastic forms were reflected as in a mirror. Across the loch the lofty summit of Ben Cruachan appeared towering to the sky. The scenery immediately surrounding Murray's domain of Bercaldine was of extreme beauty.
Macintosh. O, it's been a scandal! The great Argyle he gaed before, He gart the cannons and guns to roar, and the very macer cried 'Cruachan! But now that I have got you again I'll never despair. The oak shall go over the myrtle yet; we'll ding the Campbells yet in their own town. Praise God that I should see the day!"
They form a ridge, sloping off at each side, which is continued downward with an arrangement of smaller stones suggestive of ribs. The mound has been formed in such a position that the worshippers standing at the altar would naturally look eastward, directly along the whole length of the great reptile and across the dark lake to the triple peaks of Ben Cruachan.
Having bid adieu to our venerable and kind cicerone, we proceeded on our tour, winding round the tremendous mountain called Cruachan Ben, which rushes down in all its majesty of rocks and wilderness on the lake, leaving only a pass, in which, notwithstanding its extreme strength, the warlike clan of MacDougal of Lorn were almost destroyed by the sagacious Robert Bruce.
"And think you that I am like a bush, that is rooted to the soil where it grows, and must die if carried elsewhere? I have breathed other winds than these of Ben Cruachan. I have followed your father to the wilds of Ross and the impenetrable deserts of Y Mac Y Mhor. Tush, man! my limbs, old as they are, will bear me as far as your young feet can trace the way."
The horses pranced between the isles; our cannon trundled on over the deeps; our feet made a muffled thunder, and that was the only sound in all the void. For Cruachan had looked down on the devastation of the enemy. And at the falling of the night we camped at the foot of Glen Noe. It was a night of exceeding clearness, with a moon almost at the full, sailing between us and the south.
And the shrill, fierce Highland cry, "Gralloch him!" echoed the infamous catch, till the night air rang faintly in the starlight. "Cruachan!" shouted Captain Campbell; "the wild myrtle to clan Campbell, the heather to the McDonalds! An't Arm, chlanna!" And a great shout answered him: "The army! Sons of the army!"
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