the
bramble-bush where he lay hidden. Miracles were performed for his
behoof. "I got a horse and a woman to carry the child, and came to the
same mountain, where I wandered by the mist before; it is commonly known
by the name of Kellsrhins: when we came to go up the mountain, there
came on a great rain, which we thought was the occasion of the child's
weeping, and she wept so bitterly, that all we could do could not divert
her from it, so that she was ready to burst. When we got to the top of
the mountain, where the Lord had been formerly kind to my soul in
prayer, I looked round me for a stone, and espying one, I went and
brought it. When the woman with me saw me set down the stone, she
smiled, and asked what I was going to do with it. I told her I was going
to set it up as my Ebenezer, because hitherto, and in that place, the
Lord had formerly helped, and I hoped would yet help. The rain still
continuing, the child weeping bitterly, I went to prayer, and no sooner
did I cry to God, but the child gave over weeping, and when we got up
from prayer, the rain was pouring down on every side, but in the way
where we were to go there fell not one drop; the place not rained on was
as big as an ordinary avenue." And so great a saint was the natural butt
of Satan's persecutions. "I retired to the fields for secret prayer
about midnight. When I went to pray I was much straitened, and could not
get one request, but 'Lord pity,' 'Lord help'; this I came over
frequently; at length the terror of Satan fell on me in a high degree,
and all I could say even then was--'Lord help.' I continued in the duty
for some time, notwithstanding of this terror. At length I got up to my
feet, and the terror still increased; then the enemy took me by the
arm-pits, and seemed to lift me up by my arms. I saw a loch just before
me, and I concluded he designed to throw me there by force; and had he
got leave to do so, it might have brought a great reproach upon
religion."[6] But it was otherwise ordered, and the cause of piety
escaped that danger.[7]

On the whole, the Stevensons may be described as decent, reputable folk,
following honest trades--millers, maltsters, and doctors, playing the
character parts in the Waverley Novels with propriety, if without
distinction; and to an orphan looking about him in the world for a
potential ancestry, offering a plain and quite unadorned refuge, equally
free from shame and glory. John, the land-labourer, is the o