The parishes of Cullicuden and Kiltearn are situated on opposite sides of the bay of Cromarty; and their respective manses, at the beginning of the last century, nearly fronted each other; the waters of the bay flowing between. Their clergymen, at that period, were much famed for the sanctity of their lives, and their diligence in the duties of their profession; and, from the similarity of their characters, they became strongly attached. They were both hard students; and, for at least two hours after midnight, the lights in their closet windows would be seen as if twinkling at each other across the Firth. When the light of the one was extinguished, the other regarded it as a signal to retire to rest. “But, how now,” thought the minister of Kiltearn, as one night, in answer to the accustomed sign, he dropped the extinguisher on his candle, “how now are the sleeping watchmen to fulfil their duties? Would it not be better that, like sentinels, we should relieve each other by turns? There would then be at all times within the bounds appointed us, open eyes and a praying heart.” He imparted the thought to his friend; and ever after, as long as they lived, the one minister never retired to bed until the casement of the other had given evidence that he had risen to relieve him. A few years after this arrangement had taken place, a parishioner of Cullicuden, who had been detained by business till a late hour in some of the neighbouring parishes, was walking homeward over the solitary Maolbuoy, when he was joined by a stranger gentleman, who seemed journeying in the same direction, and entered with him into conversation. He found him to be one of the most intelligent, amusing men he had ever met with. He seemed to know everything; and though he was evidently no friend to the Church, he did nothing worse than laugh at it. The man of Cullicuden felt more than half inclined to laugh at it too, and more than half convinced by the ludicrous stories of the stranger, that its observances were merely good jokes. In this mood they reached the extreme edge of the Maolbuoy, where it borders on Cullicuden, when the stranger made a full stop. “Our road runs this way,” said the man. “Ah!” replied the stranger, “but I cannot accompany you: see you that?” pointing, as he spoke, to a faint twinkling light on the opposite side of the bay--“The watchman is stationed there, and I dare not come a step further.” It was only from this confession that the Cullicuden man learned the true character of his companion. [Sidenote: THE LADY OF ARDVROCK.]