“In my childhood I lived in the country.  My father, in addition to his professional duties, sometimes did a little farming in an amateurish sort of way.  He did not keep a regular staff of labourers, and consequently when anything extra had to be done, such as hay-cutting or harvesting, he used to employ day-labourers to help with the work.  At such times I used to enjoy being in the fields with the men, listening to their conversation.  On one occasion I heard a labourer remark that he had once seen the devil!  Of course I was interested and asked him to give me his experience.  He said he was walking along a certain road, and when he came to a point where there was an entrance to a private place (the spot was well known to me), he saw a black dog sitting on the roadside.  At the time he paid no attention to it, thinking it was an ordinary retriever, but after he had passed on about two or three hundred yards he found the dog was beside him, and then he noticed that its eyes were blood-red.  He stooped down, and picked up some stones in order to frighten it away, but though he threw the stones at it they did not injure it, nor indeed did they seem to have any effect.  Suddenly, after a few moments, the dog vanished from his sight.

“Such was the labourer’s tale.  After some years, during which time I had forgotten altogether about the man’s story, some friends of my own bought the place at the entrance to which the apparition had been seen.  When my friends went to reside there I was a constant visitor at their house.  Soon after their arrival they began to be troubled by the appearance of a black dog.  Though I never saw it myself, it appeared to many members of the family.  The avenue leading to the house was a long one, and it was customary for the dog to appear and accompany people for the greater portion of the way.  Such an effect had this on my friends that they soon gave up the house, and went to live elsewhere.  This was a curious corroboration of the labourer’s tale.”

As we have already stated in Chapter VII, a distinction must be drawn between the so-called Headless Coach, which portends death, and the Phantom Coach, which appears to be a harmless sort of vehicle.  With regard to the latter we give two tales below, the first of which was sent by a lady whose father was a clergyman, and a gold medallist of Trinity College, Dublin.

“Some years ago my family lived in Co.  Down.  Our house was some way out of a fair-sized manufacturing town, and had a short avenue which ended in a gravel sweep in front of the hall door.  One winter’s evening, when my father was returning from a sick call, a carriage going at a sharp pace passed him on the avenue.  He hurried on, thinking it was some particular friends, but when he reached the door no carriage was to be seen, so he concluded it must have gone round to the stables.  The servant who answered his ring said that no visitors had been there, and he, feeling certain that the girl had made some mistake, or that some one else had answered the door, came into the drawing-room to make further inquiries.  No visitors had come, however, though those sitting in the drawing-room had also heard the carriage drive up.