Late this afternoon, having spent the day among pots, pans and laundry I went out on the buggy for a breath of fresh air before the preparation of dinner. The evening gloom was gathering as I left and I switched on the lights to be sure and be seen by other traffic.
I took a circular route which would bring me back through the unlit lane. My son had been obliged, due to the vagaries of the public transport system to used the same route this morning before light. He has not done this for years and had forgotten just how dark it is, especially when there is a thick fog.
As I returned home by this route the mist was low on the ground but was only about four feet hight, this effect is caused in some measure by our closeness to the river and has the odd effect of allowing you to see clearly in to the distance yet be unable to see your own feet.
I was reminded of an evening about twelve years ago, and evening of low hanging mist and drizzle, the day I saw the ghost.
I was out with my darling West Highland terrier, now sadly no longer with us on the last of her trice daily walks, that is to say I walked while she ran around in circles occasionally doing the doggy equivalent of hand brake turns and making friends with other dogs and chasing squirrels, for which she harboured a great dislike. I had been joined on the occasion by a friend who was walking her Cairn terrier, a brown version of my little white lady. We had not seen each other for some time and chatted away while the dogs ran madly about. In the distance I could just make out an odd figure dressed from head to toe in black advancing towards us on the grass. The dogs ran towards us whining and afraid and as I looked at the figure again I noticed that it was actually not walking on the ground at all, it was in fact hovering just above the line of mist, at this time about a foot off the level of the turf. I turned to point this odd appearance out to my friend , she had gone, I tuned around in time to see her running at top speed towards her car and with her not only her own dog but my craven little madam!
I turned again to look at the figure half expecting it to be gone , no it was still there and still advancing towards me, by this time it was close enough to make out the nature of its garments-almost certainly it wore a habit such a a monk or priest would wear, strangely I never considered the possibility of its being a nun in spite of the fact the the site was occupied by a convent until old Henry 111V evicted the nuns and gave the convent to an old crony for services rendered.
I wondered what would happen when it reach me but I was never to find out as within just fifteen feet or so from where I was standing it seemed to be absorbed by the surrounding mist which by this time had increased in both hight and depth.
I decided I should retrieve my dog and as I approached her car my friend wound down the window, she was white to the lips and positively shaking, I did not need to ask her if she had seen anything odd. She kept babbling about the figure in black , she was so upset that I was afraid she would be unable to drive , I need not have worried, she could not get out of the place fast enough. I never met her in that location again.
Of course I told the boys all about it and speculated a good deal as to who it might have been, I can say with honesty that I was not frightened by what I saw, the figure gave off and overwhelming aura of sadness and I felt that keenly.
After a little research we discovered that a priest , confessor to the nuns at the convent was burned at the stake for similar reasons to those that caused Thomas Moore and Bishop Fisher to go to there deaths. I am convinced that what I saw was the ghost of one Richard Reynolds, a benign and very learned man by all accounts and not the sort to do harm.
For several years I looked in vain to see the ghost again, going out in the evening and at the same time of year. I saw nothing until one evening while walking in the lane with my son, we had been talking and he went suddenly quiet, as I turned to ask what was wrong I saw what he had already seen, floating just above the mist and vanishing in the same way as before. My son was delighted to have seen my ghost and I too was glad, I should have liked to try talking to him but he seems to be lost in his solitary melancholy.
I have not seem him since, not this evening when the strange rising mist filled the lane and the droplets of drizzle seemed to hang in the air. Perhaps he has gone to where ever spirits call home but somehow I fell that to him this is his home, and he continues to protect people in the darkness, and scare the britches of a few people too.
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