Miss Lefanu never visited the spot alone after dusk, and
had been warned against it even in the daytime. As she drew near to it,
everything that she had ever heard about it flashed across her mind, and
she was more than once on the verge of turning back, when the sight of
the big, friendly-looking dog plodding behind, reassuring her, she
pressed on. Just as she came to the gap, there was a loud snapping of
twigs, and, to her horror, two tramps, with singularly sinister faces,
sprang out, and were about to strike her with their bludgeons, when the
dog, uttering a low, ominous growl, dashed at them. In an instant the
expression of murderous joy in their eyes died out, one of abject terror
took its place, and, dropping their weapons, they fled, as if the very
salvation of their souls depended on it. As may be imagined, Miss Lefanu
lost no time in getting home, and the first thing she did on arriving
there was to go into the kitchen and order the cook to prepare, at once,
a thoroughly good meal for her gallant rescuer--the Newfoundland dog,
which she had shut up securely in the back yard, with the laughing
remark, "There--you can't escape me now." Judge of her astonishment,
however, when, on her return, the dog had gone. As the walls of the back
yard were twelve feet high, and the doors had been shut all the
while--no one having passed through them--it was impossible for the
animal to have escaped, and the only interpretation that could possibly
be put on the matter was that the dog was superphysical--a conclusion
that was subsequently confirmed by the experiences of various other
people. As the result of exhaustive enquiries Miss Lefanu eventually
learned that many years before, on the very spot where the tramps had
leaped out on her, a pedlar and his Newfoundland dog had been discovered
murdered. This story being true, then, there is one more link in the chain of
evidence to show that dogs, as well as men, have spirits, and spirits
that can, on occasion, at least, perform deeds of practical service. _A Precentor's Story_

The late Mr. W.T. Stead, in his volume of _Real Ghost Stories_, narrates
the following, which by reason of its being witnessed by three people
simultaneously, may be regarded as highly evidential. In reply to Mr. Stead's request to hear the anecdote the precentor says
(I quote him _ad verbum_):

"I was walking, about nine years ago, one night in August, about ten
o'clock, and about half a mile from the house where we are now sitting. I was going along the public road between the hamlets of Mill of Haldane
and Ballock. I had with me two young women, and we were leisurely
walking along, when suddenly we were startled by seeing a woman, a child
about seven years old, and a Newfoundland dog jump over the stone wall
which was on one side of the road, and walk on rapidly in front of us. I
was not in the least frightened, but my two companions were very much
startled. What bothered me was that the woman, the child, and the dog,
instead of coming over the wall naturally one after the other, as would
have been necessary for them to do, had come over with a bound,
simultaneously leaping the wall, lighting on the road, and then hurrying
on without a word. Leaving my two companions, who were too frightened to
move, I walked rapidly after the trio. They walked on so quickly that it
was with difficulty that I got up to them. I spoke to the woman, she
never answered. I walked beside her for some little distance, and then
suddenly the woman, the child, and the Newfoundland dog disappeared. I
did not see them go anywhere, they simply were no longer there. I
examined the road minutely, at the spot where they had disappeared, to
see if it was possible for them to have gone through a hole in the wall
on either side; but it was quite impossible for a woman and a child to
get over a high dyke on either side. They had disappeared, and I only
regret that I did not try to pass my stick right through their bodies,
to see whether or not they had any resistance. Finding they had gone, I
returned to my lady friends, who were quite unnerved, and who, with
difficulty, were induced to go on to the end of their journey." One of his companions, Mr. Stead goes on to explain, who heard him tell
the story at the time, corroborated the fact that it had made a great
impression on those who had seen it. Nothing was ever ascertained as to
any woman, child, or Newfoundland dog that had ever been in the district
before. When they got to Ballock they enquired of the keeper of the
bridge whether a woman, a child, and a dog had passed that way, but he
had seen nothing. The apparition had disappeared as suddenly as it had
appeared. Mr. Stead's article ends here. Of course, one can only surmise
as to the nature of the phenomena. No member of the Psychical Research
Society could do more--and in the absence of any authentic history of
the spot where the manifestations occurred, such a surmise can be of
little value. Since the phenomena were seen by three people at the same
time, it is quite safe to assume they were objective, but it is
impossible to lay down the law as to whether they were actual phantasms
of the dead--of a woman, child, and Newfoundland dog who had all three
met with some violent end--or phantasms of three living beings, who,
happening to think of that locality at the same time, had projected
their immaterial bodies there simultaneously. But whichever of these
alternatives be true, the same thing holds good in either case, viz. that the Newfoundland dog had a spirit--and what applies to one dog
should assuredly apply to the generality, if not, indeed, to all. _Phantom Dog seen on Souter Fell_

Miss Harriet Martineau, in her _English Lakes_, refers to certain
strange phenomena seen from time to time on Souter Fell. In 1745, for example, a Mr. Wren and his servant saw, simultaneously, a
man and dog pursuing some horses along a razor-like ridge of rocks, on
which it was obviously impossible for any ordinary being to gain a bare
foothold, let alone walk. They watched the figures until the latter
suddenly vanished, when Mr. Wren and his servant, thinking, perhaps, the
man, dog, and horses had really fallen over the cliff, went to look for
them. They searched elsewhere, but despite their vigilance, nothing was
to be found, and convinced at last that what they had seen was something
superphysical, they came away mystified, and no doubt somewhat
frightened. There is no suggestion to make here other than the manifestations may
have been the phantasms of a man, dog, and horses that at some former
date had been killed, either accidentally or purposely, in or near that
spot. _The Jumping Ghost_

Mr. George Sinclair, in his work _Satan's Invisible World Discovered_,
gives a detailed account of hauntings in a house in Mary King's Close,
Edinburgh. The house, at the time Mr. Sinclair writes, was occupied by Mr. Thomas
Coltheart, a law agent.