Nor must one feel too scornful of such "superstition" when one recollects how palmists, clairvoyants, and crystal-gazers flourish in London and every other city on the payments of hundreds of well-educated and enlightened people. "Oh, a pack of silly women with more money than sense," you may exclaim. To which I reply, "Not at all," if the testimony of a most respectable fortune-teller who was once well known to me can be believed. According to her, quite a number of her clients belonged to the sterner (and we presume) more sensible sex, and my own observation has also led me to conclude that men on the whole are quite as much tempted to peer into futurity as women are, only naturally they think it their duty to pretend indifference on such matters! Still, however that may be, the Bond Street fortune-teller, with whom one makes a solemn appointment, and who never "looks at a hand" under a guinea, is nevertheless but a witch, belonging to the same ancient guild as the unkempt old woman who lives in a hovel on the sea-shore near a certain little town in Cardiganshire. This particular old woman has quite a local reputation as a witch--even attaining to the fame of having her portrait on a postcard--and is much resorted to by summer visitors who wish to have their fortunes told.
But Cardiganshire, especially the Northern part, has always been a stronghold of belief in witches and wise men, and their supposed powers of putting a "curse" on the persons or property of those who annoyed them. There is a story told of an old woman who had the reputation of being a witch in a lonely district of the wild hills of North Cardiganshire. She was on the road one day, when the doctor came riding along in great haste, whom she tried to detain. But he, either not understanding what she wanted, or unwilling to stop, urged his horse forward, somewhat roughly bidding the old crone begone. Shrieking after him, she told him to beware, "as she would lay a curse upon his horse," which threat he soon forgot, and after visiting his patient returned home in safety. That night, however, Dr. G. was roused from his sleep by the groom, who asked him to come out at once to the horse, as it seemed to be very ill. To make the story short, the poor animal died in a few hours' time, nor could its owner ever determine the nature of its extraordinary attack, as it was apparently perfectly well when stabled for the night. But the coincidence between the horse's death and the witch's words was certainly striking.