294 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



tastrophe which has not unfrequently happened in such cir- 

 cumstances in the olden time, and of which those recent philan- 

 thropists who engage themselves in finding work for the un- 

 employed may have perhaps entertained some little dread in 

 our own days, he got rid of them for the time by setting 

 them off in a body to run a mound across the Moray Frith 

 from Fortrose to Ardersier. Toiling hard in the evening of 

 a moonlight night, they had proceeded greatly more than two- 

 thirds towards the completion of the undertaking, when a 

 luckless Highlander passing by bade God-speed the work, 

 and, by thus breaking the charm, arrested at once and for 

 ever the construction of the mound, and saved the naviga- 

 tion of Inverness. 



I stood for a few seconds at the Burn of Rosemarkie, un- 

 decided whether I should take the Scarfs-Craig road, a break- 

 neck path which runs eastwards along the cliffs, and which, 

 though the rougher, is the more direct Cromarty line of the 

 two, or the considerably better though longer line of the 

 White Bog, which strikes upwards along the burn in a wester- 

 ly direction, and joins the Cromarty and Inverness highway 

 on the moor of the Maolbuie. I had got into a part of the 

 country where every little locality, and every more striking 

 feature in the landscape, has its associated tradition; and the 

 pause of a few moments at the two roads recalled to my me- 

 mory the details of a ghost-story, long regarded in the dis- 

 trict in which it was best known as one of the most authen- 

 tic of its class, but which seems by no means inexplicable on 

 natural principles.* 



* The story here referred to is narrated in " Scenes and Legends of the 

 North of Scotland," chap. xxv. 



