It appears that Scott had Rob Roy in his eye as a model for Roderick Dhu, and it is the Macgregor country which he has given to his fictitious Vich Alpines. Mr. Cunninghame Graham points out how the Highland borders were always more troubled than the interior clandom, and how here especially the vicinity of a rich lowland offered constant temptation for followers of the “good old rule, the simple plan” recorded by Wordsworth. The Forth made a boundary against these predatory excursions, yet sometimes a Roderick Dhu would harry fields and farms as far as the home of “poor Blanche of Devon,” beyond Stirling. The “red soldiers” in turn came to pass the Highland line. On Ellen’s Isle women and children took refuge from Cromwell’s men; Monk marched by Aberfoyle, noting for destruction its woods that harboured rebels; and not to speak of Captain Thornton’s unlucky expedition, no less authentic a hero than Wolfe once commanded the fortress which the Georges placed at Inversnaid, near Rob Roy’s home, to bridle that broken clan of Ishmaelites. The railway, from Glasgow or from Stirling, passes to the south of the Loch of Menteith, with its islands, to which a short divagation might be made. Here, on the “Isle of Rest,” shaded by giant chestnuts which tradition brings from Rome, are the ruins of a cloister whither the child Queen Mary was carried for refuge after the battle of Pinkie, before setting out for France with her playmate maids of honour. Last night the Queen had four Marys, To-night she’ll have but three; There was Mary Beaton and Mary Seaton And Mary Carmichael and me. Mary Livingston was the authentic fourth of the quartette in those days, and Mary Fleming held the place of Mary Carmichael. The luckless heroine of this touching ballad was a Mary Hamilton supposed by Scott to have been one of the Queen’s attendants later on, but her identity is somewhat dubious; and one writer shows reason to believe that the story of her crime and punishment has been strangely shifted from the Russian Court of Peter the Great, where she might well exclaim-- Ah! little did my minnie think, The night she cradled me The lands that I should travel in, The death that I should dee! Beyond this lake a railway branch brings us to [Illustration: GOLDEN AUTUMN, THE TROSSACHS, PERTHSHIRE]