On the high road between Calachyle and Salen in Mull, a strong man of the name of Maclean was met at night by Hugh. The horseman spake never a word, but caught Maclean to take him away. Maclean resisted, and in the struggle caught hold of a birch sapling and succeeded in holding it till the cock crew. The birch tree was twisted in the struggle, and one after another of its roots gave way. As the last was yielding the cock crew. The twisted tree may still be seen. The same story is told of a twisted tree near Tobermory, and a similar one is localised between Lochaber and Badenoch.[30] Other premonitions of death were the howling of dogs, the appearance of lights, loud outcries and sounds of weeping, apparitions of the doomed person’s “fetch,” or coffin, or funeral procession, etc. These sounds and appearances were more apt to precede an accidental and premature death, such as drowning, and to understand them properly it will be necessary to enter into an examination of the doctrine of the Second Sight. CHAPTER IV. SECOND SIGHT (_an da shealladh_). Freed from a good deal of mystery in which an imperfect understanding of its character has involved it, the gift of second sight may be briefly explained to be the same as being “spectre-haunted,” or liable to “spectre illusions,” when that condition occurs, as it often does, in persons of sound mind. The phenomena in both cases are the same; the difference is in the explanation given of them. In the one case the vision is looked on as unreal and imaginary, arising from some bodily or mental derangement, and having no foundation in fact, while the other proceeds on a belief that the object seen is really there and has an existence independent of the seer, is a revelation, in fact, to certain gifted individuals of a world different from, and beyond, the world of sense. Science has accepted the former as the true and rational explanation, and traces spectral illusions to an abnormal state of the nervous system, exhaustion of mind or body, strong emotions, temperament, and others of the countless, and at times obscure, causes that lead to hallucination and delusion. But before optical and nervous delusions were recognised by science, while the spectres were believed to be external realities having an existence of their own, the visions were necessarily invested with an awe approaching to terror, and the gift or faculty of seeing them could not but be referred to some such explanation as the doctrine of the second sight offers.