Forses’ Second-sight. III 
corner. I have known people of the present day who 
were positive that there really was ‘something’ weird 
in the places where the dog was said to appear. 
It is supposed that horses are peculiarly liable to 
take fright and run away, to shy, or stumble, and 
break their knees, at a certain spot in the road. 
They go very well till just on passing the fatal spot 
a sudden fear seizes them as if they could see some- 
thing invisible to men; sometimes they bolt head- 
long, sometimes stand stock-still and shiver; or 
throw the rider by a rapid side movement. In the 
day-time—for this supernatural effect is felt in broad 
day as well as at night—the horse more frequently 
falls or stumbles, as if checked by an invisible force 
in the midst of his career. This, too, is a living 
superstition, and some persons will recount a whole 
string of accidents that have happened within a few 
yards ; till at last, such is the force of iteration, the 
most incredulous admit it to bea series of remarkable 
coincidences. These last two, the black dog and the 
dangerous place in the road, are believed in by people 
of a much higher grade than carters, Altogether, 
the vitality of superstition in the country is very much 
greater than is commonly suspected. It is now con- 
fined, as it were, to the inner life of the people: no 
one talks of such things openly, but only to their friends, 
and thus a stranger might remark on the total ex- 
tinction of the belief in the supernatural. But much 
really remains. 
