Cold, Lone and Still

2: The Way Continues

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From Balmaha, The Way followed the east side of Loch Lomond. We had half thought of taking a boat-trip to the island of Inchcailloch, the largest of the little archipelago at that end of the loch, but the brochure had mentioned the geology of the island as one of its attractions and, after our meeting with Perth and the polytechnic students, the word ‘geology’ put me off. Hera had wanted to follow the nature trail on the island, but, because of the students, Todd and the clownish Carbridge, I decided to push on to Rowardennan, which was our next stopping-place.

This part of our walk was rewarding but, along one shortish stretch, it was also hazardous, for it debouched on to a narrow, hilly, winding road with blind bends around which cars could give unwary walkers an unpleasant surprise. Some of the walk was up and down quite considerable slopes, but some of it was along the side of the loch. Hera sang and, if I knew the tune, I whistled it. We were very happy. The holiday was going to be a success, after all.

Inland, we passed through natural woods as well as through more of the Forestry Commission’s plantations. Now and again we loitered at one or other of the small beaches which we came to beside the water. We also stopped to look at the views ahead and astern of us and, as we walked on, we could look across the loch to the motor-road which ran along on the other side past Tarbet and Ben Vorlich and on to Ardlui.

Sometimes we paddled in the shallows or sat and tossed stones into the water. One way and another we walked or idled away the time and ate some of the food we had bought in Drymen. Altogether it was a very easy-going, pleasant day. The weather was perfect but not unduly hot, the oak woods through which we passed were magnificent and so were the views when we came again into the open country or on to the shore of the loch.

All that day we found that the markers which charted The Way were well posted and easy to follow. The sign was a thistle inside a hexagon and there were also unmistakeable yellow arrows on signposts where The Way diverged from what appeared to be the obvious path.

We were so happy that, where this was possible, we walked hand-in-hand, more like children than like a sensible couple who had planned to test the temperature of a possible future together. I had begun to have my doubts at the outset of the walk, but they were all resolved on that halcyon day when we trekked from Balmaha to Rowardennan, where we were booked in at the youth hostel.

The magic in the air came from the weather and the scenery, of course, but, even so, I had learnt something of value to me. Hera and I could expect to have our ups and downs, a rough passage at times, frustrations and disagreements, but there would also be compensations, ‘port after stormy seas’, a benign providence somewhere in the offing, the isles of the blest for a safe anchorage at the end of the day. How one deceives oneself!

The youth hostel at Rowardennan was backed by trees and a hill, had a curious little turret and was beautifully situated on the shore of the loch. It had a hundred beds, served meals from Easter to September and there was also a members’ kitchen, but it was very much more convenient for us to buy a meal there and conserve our emergency rations.

Ben Vrackie was away to our right as we faced the hostel, and the huge bulk of Ben Lomond loomed ahead. We were booked for two nights at Rowardennan and next morning nothing would satisfy Hera but to take the ferry across Loch Lomond to Inverbeg. It was running, so, together with a number of other hostellers — although none of them, so far as I could see, were acquaintances of ours — we boarded the boat.

Once ashore, we had lunch in Inverbeg and then walked along the road which follows the river through Glen Douglas. We crossed the railway and reached the Garelochhead-Arrocher road where, thanks, I think, to Hera’s beauty, we thumbed a lift to Oban by way of Inverary on Loch Fyne and the Pass of Brander.

I had to hire a car and a driver to take us back to Inverbeg and we missed the boat on its return journey and had to spend the night at Inverbeg and cross back again in the morning.

‘I wish we could stay here another night,’ said Hera, when we stepped ashore at Rowardennan again. I felt the same urge and, in any case, I wanted to explain why we had not taken up our option of bedding down at the hostel the night before. We knew we were not the only hostellers who had crossed the loch on the previous day and some thoughtful soul had reported to the warden that we had missed the boat. I asked whether we could stay an extra night. The hostel was not full, so permission was readily granted and we spent most of the daylight hours on the little loch-side beach in front of the hostel, except for part of the afternoon when we took another trip on the water to the head of the loch and back.

It would have been possible to follow the example of some of the other hostellers and climb Ben Lomond, a scheduled half-day excursion by a well-established route, but we decided upon a lazy day instead, as there would be enough walking to do before we reached Fort William and Ben Nevis.

Part of our time on the beach was spent watching canoeists, for the place is the centre for the Scottish Youth Hostels’ canoe club. We could have gone trout-fishing, had we wished, for permits were available. However, the long, lazy daylight hours suited our contented mood and I do not know when I have spent a pleasanter or more relaxing time. Hera had one complaint, but she voiced it with a smile.

‘It’s a lovely holiday,’ she said, ‘but everything is going much too well. It isn’t testing our relationship at all.’ Obviously she had forgotten any strained feelings after we had left the airport hotel.

‘Give it time,’ I said. ‘We haven’t got to Crianlarich yet, let alone to the edge of Rannoch Moor and the Devil’s Staircase.’

‘I shall be glad to be on the move again tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Even if that other lot are walking all the way from Milngavie,’ (we had been told to pronounce it Milguy), ‘they can’t be all that far behind us now. We’ve spent a lot of time on The Way. I know we must have passed them early on, but they’ll be catching up with us soon.’

I had forgotten Carbridge and his press-gang.

‘Heavens, yes,’ I said. ‘It reminds me of An Inland Voyage, when I think of the possibility of running into that lot again.’

‘Well, this isn’t an inland voyage so far,’ said Hera. ‘We’ve been more or less beside Loch Lomond all the time and we even crossed it yesterday.’

‘I meant Stevenson’s book. He and his friend met some Belgian canoeists who more or less invited them to canoe with the local champion, who would make himself available if they would wait until the Sunday. They didn’t. They sneaked off. He says, “And, indeed, it was not time for scruples; we seemed to feel the hot breath of the champion on our necks.” Now that you have mentioned Carbridge, I seem to feel his hot breath on mine. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.’

We were unlucky. The gang, some of them looking extremely jaded, turned up just as we left the beach that evening to go into the hostel for supper. The person who showed no sign of fatigue was the effervescent Carbridge. He came in with Todd and was shouting loudly and gleefully to him as they entered, ‘And where did you get to last night, you sly moonlighter? Trust a don to find a donah, eh, you hidalgo, you! And, damme, look who’s here, old boy, old boy!’

Well, it is not possible to leg it into a youth hostel and make a dash for your own room or to have your own separate table for meals. As soon as we appeared, we were seized upon by Carbridge and the others and found that it was impossible to escape. For what remained of the evening, including the supper-time, we were unwilling listeners to stories of the adventures, mishaps and triumphs of the party as they had made their way from Milngavie to Rowardennan. Only the hostel rules of lights out and silence broke up the gathering and cut short the flow.

Carbridge made one more attempt to persuade us to join the rest of them on the walk. When it failed he said, ‘Well, if you can’t join us, beat us. I challenge you, old boy, old boy.’

‘To what?’

‘That we’ll reach Fort William before you do.’

‘I don’t know that we’re bothering about Fort William. We shall probably knock off at Kinlochleven,’ I told him. ‘The rest of The Way is over an old military road, I believe, and might not be very interesting.’

‘Make it Kinlochleven, then, although, if you end up there, you’ll be missing the best part of the trip.’

‘I think not, from what I’ve heard and read.’

‘It’s a first-class YH at Fort William and we shall climb Ben Nevis from there. You’ll be missing all that.’

‘I wish you the joy of it.’

‘Well, five quid that at least two of us, me and a lassie, as they say in these parts, get to Kinlochleven before you two do. Walking all the way, of course. No more of this bus and train lark of yours. Am I on?’

‘No, of course you’re not. If we fancy taking to the public transport, we shall do just that.’

‘Cissy stuff, old boy, old boy.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t accept the bet openly,’ said Hera, when we had seen the gang off next morning, ‘but, all the same, we will get to Kinlochleven before they do. Him and a lassie indeed! I’m a better walker than any of these women he’s got with him, I’m certain of that, and I’m going to prove it.’

‘But we may feel the urge to take a bus or train here and there. The weather may change. We may get blisters on our feet or even sprain an ankle. All sorts of things could happen.’

‘So they could to Carbridge and the others. Look here, Comrie, if I had been one of your men friends you wouldn’t have turned down that bet.’

‘Yes, I should. Under no circumstances am I prepared to go into any sort of a huddle with that irritating blighter. Anyway, although I told him we were only going as far as Kinlochleven, of course we’re finishing at Fort William. All the same, I’m going to see that we hang about long enough to make sure that he’s left Fort William before we get there. I’m not going to run into that gang again if I can possibly help it. Of all the boring evenings I’ve ever spent, last night was the worst.’

‘Kinlochleven is not a place to hang about in. Isn’t it all factories and works and things?’

‘We can cross by the Ballachulish Bridge, then, and not go into Kinlochleven at all. We don’t have to stick to The Way.’

She said no more, but I knew, by the obstinate set of her chin, that if she had her say, we were to walk The Way to Kinlochleven come hail, wind, physical injury, rain or snow.

I had seen the others loading up with food at Rowardennan, so it looked as though they were going to bivouac on the way. There was little chance that we should catch up with them, I thought, at any rate on the first stage of the journey. It was only just over seven miles to Inversnaid and they had set off at half past eight from the hostel, so I guessed that they would pass the burn and the waterfall and be well on their way to Inverarnan before they rested and had their lunch. We ourselves had decided upon a mid-morning snack and a drink at Inversnaid, where there was a very good hotel. We were also booked in for the night there — separately again, of course.

It was a place I had seen once before, but not when I had been walking The Way. My mother and father had taken me on a coach tour when I was very young and we had followed the Glasgow to Arrochar road to turn off for Glencoe. The lunch stop had been at the Inversnaid hotel, however, and to reach it we had to be ferried across the loch and then back again in the afternoon to rejoin the coach.

As I recall it, the boat was supplied by the hotel and to get into it we had to step up on to an empty petrol can. I could not remember the lunch or anything about the hotel except that I saw two young men drop a large, heavy crate of eggs just outside the entrance. They stood and roared with laughter at the extremely messy result. I think they must have been Irishmen come over for the summer season to provide extra help at the hotel, for I cannot believe that Scotsmen, even Highlanders, would have regarded such a wasteful catastrophe with such uninhibited joy. We laughed, too, of course. Such laughter is really rooted in shock.

I particularly wanted Hera to see the waterfall. It is immensely high and so early in the summer there would be a lot of water coming down. Wordsworth admired the torrent, but, when we came upon it after having heard it from a long way off, Hera quoted from Gerard Manley Hopkins:

‘ “This darksome burn, horseback brown,

His rollrock highroad roaring down

In coop and in coomb the fleece of his foam

Flutes and low to the lake falls home,” ’

she said, gazing at the tumbling torrent with the fascination I had hoped for.

We came upon it rather unexpectedly, as a matter of fact, in spite of the noise it made. We had had rather a rough scramble after walking through woods and then along the side of the loch, but, coming through more woodland on another stretch of The Way, we had seen birds and wild flowers which enchanted both of us and the sound of the waterfall was a diapason to all this happiness.

When we came in sight of the torrent and Hera had spoken Hopkins’ lines, I put my arm round her and quoted in her ear:

‘What hand but would a garland cull

For thee who art so beautiful?’

‘Then why didn’t you cull me one?’ she asked. ‘There was plenty of opportunity a little while ago.’

We knew that by now we must be well in the rear of Carbridge and his party, and by the time we had spent the night at the Inversnaid hotel they would be miles and miles ahead of us. They had camping gear with them and, as there was no sign of them at Inversnaid, I guessed that they would pitch tents somewhere near Inverarnan before going on to the youth hostel at Crianlarich. I thought it possible that the two clerks might opt for a night at a hotel, but not any of the others.

After lunch, Hera and I climbed a winding road up Glen Arklet past the little loch of the same name which is the property of the Glasgow waterworks and, to my mind, most uninteresting, but we did not finish the walk and reach Loch Katrine. Hera wanted to do this, but I pointed out that by the time we got there and back we should have added at least ten miles to the seven and a quarter we had already covered between Rowardennan and Inversnaid and that we still had to get to Crianlarich the next day.

She gave in, but rather resentfully.

‘It’s a great pity to miss the Trossachs when we’re so close,‘ she said. I pointed out that, even if we reached Loch Katrine, we could not reach the Trossachs without circumambulating most of the loch. She was silent at this. However, she admitted at dinner that I had been right and we went to our separate rooms at peace with one another.

I had a job to get her away from the waterfall after breakfast on the following morning, but we were on the move at last in perfect weather and before the day was too hot.

Hardly had we set out for Inverarnan, however, than she embarked upon a discussion of our marriage from an angle which surprised and annoyed me.

‘Comrie,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to have to sign myself Hera Melrose.’

‘Well, marry some other bloke, then,’ I said lightheartedly, thinking that she was teasing me.

‘Don’t be silly! Look, your firm is called Alexander Comrie, isn’t it?’

‘Alexander for Sandy, the senior partner, Comrie for me. We thought it sounded better for a literary agency than Storey and Melrose. What about it? Lots of firms do the same sort of thing. It’s quite legal, so long as you register the name.’

‘But, Comrie, you have another name, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. You know I have. It’s Alan.’

‘I wouldn’t mind being Mrs Alan Comrie.’

‘Well, you can’t be that, if you marry me. My name is Alan Comrie Melrose.’ I began to wonder what she was getting at.

It did not sound like teasing, after all.

‘Is Comrie a real Christian name?’

‘Not being a Christian I can’t say.’ But she was not to be fobbed off by persiflage of that sort.

‘You know what I mean,’ she said shortly.

‘Comrie was the surname of the uncle who left me such money as I have put into the firm.’

‘Well, wouldn’t he be pleased if he knew you had adopted Comrie as your own surname?’

‘I shouldn’t think he’d bother to sit up in his grave and cheer. Anyway, Melrose I am, and Melrose I stay.’

In that extraordinary way of hers, she realised that, although I tried not to show it, she had annoyed me. She abandoned the subject completely except to say, with a promise I could not mistake, that whoever would view fair Melrose aright must visit it by pale moonlight. I was not sure that she was quoting quite correctly, but I knew that she was offering me a bribe. Alan Comrie I was to agree to become. I said no more; neither did she. On our way from Inversnaid, we came upon a family of otters gorging themselves on the waste food thrown out from the hotel. They took not the slightest notice of us, so I am in great hopes that nobody hunts them in those parts.

We did not bother to visit Rob Roy’s Cave. In any case it is not, as Hera pointed out, a ‘real’ cave, but a fissure in the rocks. Moreover, we had learned from the brochure that some idiot had marked it in large white letters and so destroyed any romance which could ever have been attached to it. I don’t wonder that Stonehenge and other fascinating monuments to the past have had to be protected from the many-headed.

The next mile or two made very rough walking indeed. We scrambled and toiled towards Inverarnan, sometimes through woods, sometimes along the lochside. There was a bonus in the form of a wild goat, but we gave it as wide a berth as we could. Once, on the Isle of Wight, I had freed a domesticated goat which had got its tether wound round a gorse bush, and the horned, ungrateful devil had then done its best to rush at me and butt me into the sea.

Apart from the goat, the only interest lay in our struggles to keep our footing on the rough path while we listened to the traffic on the other side of the loch. At Doune, or rather just before we reached a desolate farmhouse on the way to that place, we took a break on a gravel shore and then, after we had crossed a brook, the going became easier and we stopped to take a look at some deserted farm buildings.

From Doune (one of three places of that name in Scotland) to Inverarnan the way was easy. We climbed, rested, and then went by way of a little pass to find a glorious view of the loch we were leaving behind us with Ben Lomond guarding it. Ahead of us were other great mountains — I think Ben Lui was one. Soon we dropped downhill, partly through woodland, until we came to a bridge. A ruined farm and a waterfall led us to another bridge, this one over the River Falloch. After that, we came out on to the main road and so to the hotel.

I went inside to confirm our booking, secure in the knowledge that, if we ever ran into Carbridge and the others again, it would not be at Inverarnan. Neither was it. That unwished-for joy awaited us at Crianlarich, although that bit of information was not given us until we got there.

Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, runs the writ to which Gilbert Keith Chesterton too optimistically added, ‘for he shall be gloriously surprised’. In my experience, the glorious surprises have always been leaked beforehand, for it is not only bad news which travels fast. Our bad news did not travel at all, in one sense. It simply caught up with us, but that came later, for at Inverarnan, except for the prospect yet again of separate beds, all was well and I felt remarkably fit and very happy as I went to the hotel desk, leaving Hera outside.