206 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
I know comparatively little of the scenery of the middle, 
or Cornstone formation. Its features in England are bold 
and striking; in Scotland, of a tamer and more various char- 
acter. The Den of Balruddery is a sweet, wooded dell, 
marked by no characteristic peculiarities. Many of the 
seeming peculiarities of the formation in Forfarshire, as in 
Fife, may be traced to the disturbing trap. The appearance 
exhibited is that of uneven plains, that rise and fall in long, 
undulating ridges —an appearance which any other member 
of the system might have presented. We find the upper for- 
mation associated with scenery of great, though often wild 
He staid and listened. The words of a song, of such simple beauty 
that they seemed without effort to stamp themselves on his memory, 
came wafted in the music; and the chorus, in which a thousand tiny 
voices seemed to join, was a familiar address to himself — ** Hey, 
Donald Calder ; ho, Donald Calder.’ ‘There are nane of my Navi- 
ty acquaintance,’ thought Donald, “who sing like that. Wha can 
it be?” He descended into the cloud; but in passing the little 
stream the music ceased; and on reaching the spot on which the 
singer had seemed stationed, he saw only a bare bank sinking into a 
solitary moor, unvaried by either bush or hollow in which the musi- 
cian might have lain concealed. He had hardly time, however, to 
estimate the marvels of the case, when the music again struck up, 
but on the opposite side of the dell, and apparently from the very 
knoll on which he had so recently listened to it. The conviction that 
it could not be other than supernatural overpowered him; and he 
hurried homewards under the influence of a terror so extreme, that, 
unfortunately for our knowledge of fairy literature, it had the effect 
ef obliterating from his memory every part of the song except the 
chorus. The sun rose as he reached Cromarty; and he found that, 
instead of having lingered at the edge of the dell for only a few min- 
utes — and the time had seemed no longer — he had spent beside it 
the greater part of the night. f 
The fairies have deserted the Burn of Eathie ; but we have proof, 
