The Scottish imagination, in attributing wonderful properties to springs, has not gone the length of ascribing to any the power possessed by St. Ludvan's Well in Cornwall. This fountain has been already referred to as the giver of increased sight. But it had the still more marvellous power of preventing any one baptised with its water from being hanged by a hempen rope. Nor have we heard of any spring north of the Tweed that could be a match for another Cornish well, viz., that of St. Keyne, familiar to readers of Southey. Whoever, after marriage, first drank of its water would be the ruler of the house. On one occasion a bridegroom hurried to make sure of this right, but was chagrined to find that he had been anticipated: his bride had taken a bottleful of the water with her to church. CHAPTER IX. WITNESS OF WATER. Recovery from Illness--Hydromancy--Mirror--Juno's Pool--Prediction and Cure--Methods of Augury--Portents of Death--Water like Blood--Springs and National Annals--Heritable Jurisdictions--Water and Witchcraft--Devil's Mark--Water Ordeal--Abbey of Scone--Elgin Orderpot--Witch's Stone--Repeal of Penal Statutes--Witchcraft in the North--Insanity--Wild Murdoch. "Am I likely to recover?" is a question on many a patient's lips. "Ask your doctor;" and if the case looks serious, "Have a consultation" is the answer nowadays. Formerly, the answer was "Go to a consecrated well," or "Get some one else to go in your stead, and you will get a reply." There is no reason to believe that every sacred spring was credited with this power; but many undoubtedly were. Hydromancy has been a favourite mode of divination. "The conscious water" could predict the future, and questions connected with health were laid before it for its decision. The Greeks dipped a mirror into a well, and foretold health or sickness from the appearance of the watery lines on its surface. A pool in Laconia, sacred to Juno, revealed approaching good or evil fortune respectively, by the sinking or floating of wheaten cakes thrown into it, and auguries were also drawn from the movements of stones when dropt into it. Springs, therefore, deserved the respect shown to them by the confiding public. Indeed they not only told of recovery; they supplied the medicine required to ensure it, and were thus doctors and druggists combined. Sometimes the omen was unpropitious. In many cases the prophecy would work out its own fulfilment. There was a well in the Island of Lewis that caused either instant death or recovery to the patient who tested its virtues: but a speedy fulfilment like this was exceptional. St. Andrew's Well at Shadar, in Lewis, was much esteemed for its power of augury. A tub, containing some of its water, was taken to the house of the patient, and a small wooden dish was placed on the surface of the water. If this dish turned sunways, it showed that the patient would recover; but if in an opposite direction, that he would die.