... and change form to that of a big white rabbit. The rabbit made a run and jump at the man, and just as before, it appeared to be trying to force him backwards up the lane.

Patrick was still feeling frightened even though a rabbit was not as menacing as the ghost-like spirit that had preceded its change of form. What the old man was witnessing on this dark and lonely country road was something that was clearly not of this earth.  Patrick knew what he had to do and that was to get out of this lane in which he was trapped and back on to the road to his home. What he wasn’t going to do was retreat back up the lane to rap on the door of the cottage in which the two girls lived for that appeared to be what the spirit wanted him to do. 

Patrick cupped his hands together and placed them around his eyes - just like the blinkers on a horse - thereby restricting his field of vision to a narrow area just around his feet. The crafty old man had come to realise that if he didn’t see the apparition then its frightening affect on him was to a marked degree lessened.

With his head bent low and his hands tunnelling the vision of his eyes Patrick moved forward in his renewed attempt to regain the road.  The rabbit maintained its attempt to force the man back up the lane but Patrick was determined not to let it succeed.  Every time that the rabbit would drift into Patrick’s field of vision the affect would hit him like an electric shock but the old man simply rotated his head one way or the other so throwing the apparition out of view momentarily. By this method Patrick was able to regain the road and make his stumbling way towards home.

... more to come ....