90 Wild Life in a Southern County 



the wayfarer is suddenly surprised to find a gigantic 

 animal of the deepest jet trotting by his side, or he sees a 

 dark shadow detach itself from the hushes and take the 

 form of a dog. The black dog has perhaps more vitality, 

 and survives in more localities, than all the apparitions 

 that in the olden times were sworn to by persons of the 

 highest veracity. They may still be heard of in many a 

 nook and 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 something invisible to men ; sometimes 

 they bolt headlong, 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 itera- 

 tion, the most incredulous admit it to be a series of remark- 

 able 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 confined, 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 extinction of the belief in the super- 

 natural. But much really remains. 



