The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

      THE NEW TAY VIADUCT, FROM THE SOUTH.

      Within short walking distance of Perth are the Hills of Kinnoull and Moncrieffe. Tay, after leaving the town, turns sharply to the left between these two grand wooded heights—each of them rising over 700 feet above the river—and pursues its way, widening as it goes, between the rich low expanse of the Carse of Gowrie and the opposing shores of Fife. It were hard to decide which of these sentinel hills commands the more magnificent prospect. Each view might challenge comparison with any scene outside of the basin of the Tay for extent and for the mingling of all the elements of beauty in Highland and Lowland scenery. Yet, close as they stand to each other and to Perth, distinctly different panoramas, in foreground and in perspective, are unfolded from the summits of the two heights. They offer companion pictures, and not merely landscapes in duplicate, of the Tay from its sources in the distant blue ranges of the Grampians to the sea.

      The top of Moncrieffe—or Moredun—beside the foundations of the old Pict fort or dun, is the right station whence to survey Strathearn—a valley that rivals that of the Tay itself in the place it holds in the national history and in the affections of the lovers of scenic beauty. Directly below the steep pine-covered crest of Moredun runs the winding Earn, separating the park and woods of Moncrieffe from the pleasant watering-place of Bridge of Earn. Near the confluence with the Tay is Abernethy, its “Round Tower” coeval, perhaps, with the introduction of Christianity to this part of the Tay, and its Castle Law on which, says tradition, Nechtan and other Pictish kings held their state during the two centuries and a half when this decayed little burgh was the capital of the land. Beyond, in the same direction, are the waters of the Firth; Mugdrum Island, long and low; Newburgh, and Norman Law, the Norsemen’s look-out, rising on one side above old Ballenbriech Castle and the Fife shores, and on the other commanding the “Howe o’ Fife” and the Loch of Lindores. Beside the venerable ruins of Lindores Abbey, close to Newburgh and the Firth, are buried the murdered “heir of Scotland,” David, Duke of Rothesay, and James of Douglas—the “grey monk of Lindores”—the last of the ambitious race of the Black Douglases. In the same vicinity, in a glen or pass of the Ochils, stood another grim memorial of feudal or pre-feudal times, “Cross Macduff,” now represented only by its pedestal, where the taker of life, if he could “count kin,” within nine degrees, with the Thane of Fife, the head of Clan Macduff, could find refuge, and proffer the “blood-penny” in atonement.

      Over against Moredun are the crests of the Lomonds and the green, smooth, wavy lines of the Ochils; and through Glenfarg to its foot comes the new main line of railway to the North by the Forth Bridge. Right opposite, behind Pitkeathly Wells, Kilgraston, the old kirk and “rocking stone” of Dron, and the ruins of Balmanno Castle, are the “Wicks of Baiglie,” whence Scott asserted that the Romans and he could descry the site of Perth. But the eye is carried irresistibly westward along the skirts of the hills and the broad and teeming valley below, towards the Highland mountains that surround the sources of the Earn. Near at hand are Forteviot and its Holyhill—a Scoto-Pictish capital before Perth; Dunning and other villages and hamlets lying along the hill-foots, proud to this day of the memories of the martyrs for “Crown and Covenant,” their sufferings at the hands of Montrose and Mar, and the former prosperity of their weaving crafts; and standing on rich flats by the waterside, or in picturesque glens running up into the Ochils, many a mansion and castle of the fighting and grasping Jacobite lairds of Strathearn, ill neighbours of yore to the Whiggish villagers. Over against the “Birks o’ Invermay” lies Dupplin Castle (now the seat of Lord Kinnoull), with its loch, its grand woods, and the site of its battlefield, so disastrous to the Scots; and opposite Lord Rollo’s park of Duncrub is Gask, still a home of the Oliphants, though the “Auld House” has disappeared. Further west, the Ruthven water comes down through Gleneagles and the lovely wooded “Den” of Kincardine, past the old castle and the single long street of Auchterarder, famous in ecclesiastical history. The Machany flows by Culdees and Strathallan Castles, and not far from Tullibardine, cradle of the noble House of Athole, and burying-place of the great race of Montrose. At Innerpeffray, where the old line of Roman roads and stations crossed the Earn, comes in the Pow, flowing by the ruins of Inchaffray Abbey and the woods of Balgowan and Abercairney; and further on, around Crieff, and thence upwards by Comrie and St. Fillan’s, to Loch Earn, lies one of the most glorious districts, not alone of Earnside, but of Scotland. Drummond and Monzie Castles, Ochtertyre and Dunira, Lawers and Aberuchil, are among its grandly wooded demesnes; Glenturret, Glen Lednoch, and Glen Artney contribute each their charms of crag and waterfall, bosky dell and lone hillside, and there are innumerable remains of former days in the form of standing or ruined chapel and castle, and the sites of ancient feud and battle. Little of all this can, of course, be descried from the top of Moncrieffe Hill; but Ben Chonzie, and the Braes of Doune, and the Forest of Glen Artney, and behind them the shapely head of Ben Voirlich and other mountains that mirror themselves in Loch Earn or guard Glen Ogle and Lochearnhead, are full in view.

      The abrupt front of Kinnoull Hill, on the other hand, commands more directly the lower course of the Tay and its estuary, widening out between the level expanse of the Carse of Gowrie, thickly sprinkled with farms and mansions, and the opposing shores of Fife, onward to where it is closed by the smoke of Dundee and the line of the Tay Bridge. From the pathway below the tower crowning the hill, one looks down—one almost fancies he might leap down—upon the woods and sward surrounding Kinfauns Castle, the residence of the family of Gray. Visible, too, from Kinnoull, or sheltering under the folds of the “Braes o’ the Carse,” which rise from the flat champaign to the heights of the Sidlaws, are innumerable sites and scenes, equally rich in beauty and in memories of days when Gowrie was busier making history than in raising grain. Among them are St. Madoes’ Church and its sculptured Runic stones; Errol and Megginch, ancient heritages of the Hays; Kilspindie, where Wallace spent his schooldays, when he “in Gowrie dwelt, and had gude living there,” and the seat, later, of Archibald of Douglas—“Auld Graysteel;” Fingask, the home of the stout old Jacobite family of Murray Thriepland and of the “Lass o’ Gowrie” of Scottish song; Kinnaird and Rossie Priory, the earlier and later possessions of the noble House of Kinnaird, champions in these parts, for generations, of the cause of Reform.