Only a few miles beyond Strathyre is Balquhidder, lying on the road to Loch Voil. The loch lies in a very beautiful situation at the foot of the range known as the Braes of Balquhidder, culminating in Ben A’an and Ben More. It is on the property of Mr. Carnegie, whose house, Stronvar, is at the east side. In the adventurous journey made by the Wordsworths in the beginning of the nineteenth century, they actually walked over the mountains to Balquhidder from Loch Katrine by a wild, rough track, and at the foot of the hills waded through the river. Dorothy thus describes the scenery: “The mountains all round are very high; the vale pastoral and unenclosed, not many dwellings and but a few trees; the mountains in general smooth near the bottom. They are in large unbroken masses, combining with the vale to give an impression of bold simplicity.”
It was at the end of this loch that Angus handed the Fiery Cross to the Bridegroom.]
There were a few reapers in the fields, and it was from this fact that Wordsworth was inspired to write his poem _The Solitary Reaper_. The brother and sister visited the graves at Balquhidder before passing on to Callander.
It is said that when the freebooter Rob Roy lay dying in his own house at Balquhidder, his wife mocked at his repentance. He rebuked her, saying: “You have put strife betwixt me and the best men of the country, and now you would place enmity between me and my God.”
The grave of Rob Roy is in the little old graveyard, and is only a few feet from the gate. There are rude sculptured figures on the flat stone, seemingly far older than the days of the freebooter, but possibly an old stone was used to mark the place where he at length rested after his roving life. This is not the only association that Balquhidder evokes, for it is mentioned in _The Legend of Montrose_, when the Clan Macgregor there agree to stand by the murderers of the King’s deer-keeper; and also in more modern fiction, when, in Stevenson’s _Kidnapped_, poor David breaks down utterly at Balquhidder, and has to be guarded and cared for by his quaint comrade, Alan Breck.
But, tempting as it is to wander farther up the glen, here we must stop, or we shall get too far from our legitimate route through the Trossachs.