On his voyage inwards, he had no sooner doubled an intervening headland, than he stepped forward to the bows to take a peep at the cottage: it had vanished. As he approached the anchoring ground, he could discern a heap of blackened stones occupying the place where it had stood; and he was informed on going ashore, that it had been burnt to the ground, no one knew how, on the very night he had quitted the bay. He had it re-built and furnished, says the story, deeming himself what one of the old schoolmen perhaps term the _occasional_ cause of the disaster. He also returned the cock,--probably a not less important benefit,--and no after accident befel the cottage. About fifteen years ago there was a human skeleton dug up near the scene of the tradition, with the skull, and the bones of the legs and feet, lying close together, as if the body had been huddled up twofold in a hole; and this discovery led to that of the story, which, though at one time often repeated and extensively believed, had been suffered to sleep in the memories of a few elderly people for nearly sixty years. CHAPTER VII. Relation of the deep red stone of Cromarty to the Ichthyolite Beds of the System--Ruins of a Fossil-charged Bed--Journey to Avoch--Red Dye of the Boulder-clay distinct from the substance itself--Variation of Coloring in the Boulder-clay Red Sandstone accounted for--Hard-pan how formed--A reformed Garden--An ancient Battle-field--Antiquity of Geologic and Human History compared--Burn of Killein--Observation made in boyhood confirmed--Fossil-nodules--Fine Specimen of _Coccosteus decipiens_--Blank strata of Old Red--New View respecting the Rocks of Black Isle--A Trip up Moray and Dingwall Friths--Altered color of the Boulder-clay--Up the Auldgrande River--Scenery of the great Conglomerate--Graphic Description--Laidlaw's Boulder--_Vaccinium myrtillus_--Profusion of Travelled Boulders--The Boulder _Clach Malloch_--Its zones of Animal and Vegetable Life.