then, and went to the preaching like any Christian. The Lord forgive him--if it be no Papistry to say it: anyhow, the Lord forgive _me_!" "There are no miracles, now, certainly," said Celia, reflectively. "I can quite fancy what a comfort it must have been to live in the days of miracles. But who was Isabel Paterson, and what cave did she live in?" "Are there no miracles now, Madam?" asked Patient. "Ah, but I'll be long ere I say that! If the Lord wrought no miracle for John Paterson--ay, and twice over too--I little ken what a miracle is. But truly he was a godly man above many. 'Tis mostly Elijahs that be fed by angels and ravens, though I'm no saying that, if it pleased the Lord, He might not work wonders for you and me. 'Tis ill work setting limits to the Lord." "But who was Isabel Paterson, and who was John Paterson?" urged Celia again. "I'll tell you, Madam. John Paterson--he was Isabel's guidman--was a small farming-man at Pennyvenie, but at one time he dwelt for a season no so far from Lauchie. 'Twas when I was a young maid that these things happened. I knew Isabel Paterson, and many a crack I've had with her when I was a lassie, and she a thriving young wife with wee weans about her. Well, John, her guidman, was a marked man to King Charles's troopers, and many a time they set out to hunt him down. He could no dwell in his own house, but was forced to seek sleeping-room on the Crag of Benbeoch, between two great rocks, only visiting his own home by stealth. The first of these times the dragoons came on him as he was coming down from Benbeoch to the little white farmhouse below, and Isabel was watching his coming from the window. As he was crossing the moor they saw him, and he saw them. John, he turned and ran, and they galloped after. He heard them coming over the moor, and leaping the stone wall that girdled Benbeoch Crags, and he thought, 'Ah! sure 'tis all over with me now!' For only that week had Claverhouse hanged Davie Keith at his own door, and he was sib to Paterson. John he ran, and the troops they galloped: he crying mightily unto the Lord to save him for His Name's sake. And while the words were yet in his mouth, and the dragoons were so near him that he could hear their speech to one another, all at once his feet caught at a stone, and down he fell. He gave himself up for lost then, for the horses were right on him. 'But where am I going?' thinks he. Through the heather he fell, through the grass, through the very solid earth aneath him. Madam, the Lord made a new thing, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed him up, rather than he should fall into the hands of his enemies. When he came to himself--for he was a bit bruised and stunned by the fall--he felt that he was in some wide dry cavern, many a foot across, and he heard overhead the troopers cursing and swearing that they could not find the hole where, quoth they, the fox had run to earth.