In the chapter on "Some Wonderful Wells," we glanced at the mysterious origin of certain springs. In ancient times, no less than in the present, strange sights must have been witnessed. We have not a monopoly of thunderstorms, earthquakes, landslips, or deluges of rain. The same phenomena prevailed in early times. The difference is, that we have science to keep them in their proper place. During the heavy rains of January 1892, a spring near the house of Rurach, at Kintail, in Ross-shire, suddenly burst its bounds and became a raging torrent. Usually the surplus water from the spring flowed away in the form of a trickling stream, but on the occasion in question it rushed on with such force and volume that it scooped out a channel twenty feet deep and forty feet broad. The event not unnaturally caused a good deal of wonder in the neighbourhood. Had it happened several centuries earlier, some malignant water-spirit would doubtless have been reckoned the active agent. During the operations connected with the formation of the railway tunnel through Moncrieff Hill, close to Perth, the water of a certain spring in the neighbourhood suddenly failed. It happened that a clergyman, whose manse stood not far from the spring, sent, when in the extremity of illness, for a draught of its water. It was his last draught. He died immediately after; and at the same time, the spring dried up. The coincidence did not pass without remark in the district, but whether or not it gave rise to a superstition we do not know. In the dark ages it certainly would have done so. In the annals of hagiology, the early saints were associated in a special way with water. They had, for instance, the power of allaying storms. St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, exercised this power more than once. Adamnan records the same miracle in connection with Columba, abbot of Iona; and Cainneck, abbot of Aghaboe. According to a Shropshire legend, Milburga, when followed by a certain prince, was saved from her unwelcome pursuer by the river Corve rising in flood after she had crossed.