The Ayrshire Legatees

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!