Towns > Helensburgh > 1875 - Battrum's guide and directory to Helensburgh and neighbourhood

54 HELENSBURGH GUIDE.
this name it is recognised in the " Heart of Midlothian/'
The author has connected it, despite a little anachronism,
"with the son of Jeanie Deans's sister. He, while an infant,
had been sold by the person to whom he was entrusted, to a
wandering tribe of gipsies, and by them given up to Donacha
Dha, the chief of a party of freebooters, who appears to have
made the glen a place of retreat, and here the young lad was
brought up in a state little removed from the savage, and
only known by the name of "The Whistler." The reader.
of the Heart of Midlothian will remember that his mother,
while on a visit to her sister Jeanie, then Mrs. Butler, nearly
lost her life while wandering through the glen. She was at-
tacked by a party of Donacha Dhu's followers, among whom
was her son, though quite unknown to her at the time, and
was only rescued by the free use of her purse, and the ap-
pearance of some of her sister's friends. The poor Whistler's
end was a very melancholy one ; he was taken prisoner
while attempting to set fire to a house ; but making his
escape, he succeeded in hiding himself in this glen, till having
mortally ofiended Donacha Dhu, he was sold by him to some
American traders lying at Greenock, and lost his life in
attemping to escape from a brutal Southern driver.
This story, and other circumstances, gave an interest to
the glen, which would once have rendered a visit to it an
undertaking requiring some courage.
THE GAEELOCH.
A narrow and indiiFerently kept road, notwithstanding the
number of turnpikes on it, runs from Row Point to Gare-
lochhead. At many points two carriages can hardly pass
abreast, and when its rises above the level of the beach, wall