fragments of the broken bottle on the one side, and his buckthorn staff on the other. He could hear from the opening the dash of the advancing waves against the rocks, and on leaping to the beach below, found that his exploratory journey had occupied him a whole day. [Sidenote: A BOY ADVENTURER.] The adventure of Willie Millar formed at one time one of the most popular traditions of Cromarty. It was current among the children not more than eighteen years ago, when the cave was explored a second time, but with a very different result, by a boy of the school in which the writer of these legends had the misfortune of being regarded as the greatest dunce and truant of his time. The character of Willie forms the best possible commentary on _his_ story--the character of the boy may perhaps throw some little light on his. When in his twelfth year, he was by far the most inquisitive little fellow in the place. His curiosity was insatiable. He had broken his toys when a child, that he might see how they were constructed; and a watch which the owner had thoughtlessly placed within his reach, narrowly escaped sharing a similar fate. He dissected frogs and mice in the hope of discovering the seat of life; and when one day found dibbling at the edge of a spring, he said he was trying to penetrate to the source of water. His schoolmaster nicknamed him “The _Senachie_,” for the stories with which he beguiled his class-fellows of their tasks were without end or number; the neighbours called him _Philosopher_, for he could point out the star of the pole, with the Great Bear that continually walks round it; and he used to affirm that there might be people in the moon, and that the huge earth is only a planet. Having heard the legend of Willie Millar, he set out one day to explore the cave; and when he returned he had to tell that the legend was a mere legend, and that the cave, though not without its wonders, owed, like the great ones of the earth, much of its celebrity to the fears and the ignorance of mankind.