The road, after leaving Ardrossan, lies along the shore. The blast came
dark from the waters, and the clouds lay piled in every form of grandeur
on the lofty peaks of Arran. The view on the right hand is limited to
the foot of a range of abrupt mean hills, and on the left it meets the
sea--as we were obliged to keep the glasses up, our drive for several
miles was objectless and dreary. When we had ascended a hill, leaving
Kilbride on the left, we passed under the walls of an ancient tower.
What delightful ideas are associated with the sight of such venerable
remains of antiquity!
Leaving that lofty relic of our warlike ancestors, we descended again
towards the shore. On the one side lay the Cumbra Islands, and Bute,
dear to departed royalty. Afar beyond them, in the hoary magnificence of
nature, rise the mountains of Argyllshire; the cairns, as my brother
says, of a former world. On the other side of the road, we saw the
cloistered ruins of the religious house of Southenan, a nunnery in those
days of romantic adventure, when to live was to enjoy a poetical element.
In such a sweet sequestered retreat, how much more pleasing to the soul
it would have been, for you and I, like two captive birds in one cage, to
have sung away our hours in innocence, than for me to be thus torn from
you by fate, and all on account of that mercenary legacy, perchance the
spoils of some unfortunate Hindoo Rajah!
At Largs we halted to change horses, and saw the barrows of those who
fell in the great battle. We then continued our journey along the foot
of stupendous precipices; and high, sublime, and darkened with the shadow
of antiquity, we saw, upon its lofty station, the ancient Castle of
Skelmorlie, where the Montgomeries of other days held their gorgeous
banquets, and that brave knight who fell at Chevy-Chace came pricking
forth on his milk-white steed, as Sir Walter Scott would have described
him. But the age of chivalry is past, and the glory of Europe departed
for ever!
When we crossed the stream that divides the counties of Ayr and Renfrew,
we beheld, in all the apart and consequentiality of pride, the house of
Kelly overlooking the social villas of Wemyss Bay. My brother compared
it to a sugar hogshead, and them to cotton-bags; for the lofty thane of
Kelly is but a West India planter, and the inhabitants of the villas on
the shore are Glasgow manufacturers.
To this succeeded a dull drive of about two miles, and then at once we
entered the pretty village of Inverkip. A slight snow-shower had given
to the landscape a sort of copperplate effect, but still the forms of
things, though but sketched, as it were, with China ink, were calculated
to produce interesting impressions. After ascending, by a gentle
acclivity, into a picturesque and romantic pass, we entered a spacious
valley, and, in the course of little more than half an hour, reached this
town; the largest, the most populous, and the most superb that I have yet
seen. But what are all its warehouses, ships, and smell of tar, and
other odoriferous circumstances of fishery and the sea, compared with the
green swelling hills, the fragrant bean-fields, and the peaceful groves
of my native Garnock!