Short Stories & Tall Tales

THE STRANGER ON COFFIN PATH

"You don't know me. You'll hope it stays that way. Everything set down here is the absolute truth. Whether you judge me or find these events less than plausible is of little concern to me. How literal you believe the truth to be is up to you. I know what I did and I know what I saw. Is it allegory? Is it a fantasy? It's neither. It's the truth."

This was the introduction on the flysheet of a manuscript I uncovered during one of my research trips to the Bodleian library. I had spent most of the morning in the new Weston Library in Broad Street before crossing over to the Radcliffe Camera to look through a number of old liturgical texts relating to the West Oxfordshire diocese, when the above statement caught my eye. It seemed so...decisive.

What I have reproduced for you here is the text I then sat and read. I have rendered it as far as possible into a more contemporary style. I cannot say how it got here or who originally wrote it down. What agents conspired to put these words in front of me I cannot say. Given the context it is unlikely that it was the narrator who put pen to paper.

I am Robert Walters, Rector of Longhandboro, at least that is the name that comes most readily to mind. Given my perilous state I cannot be certain. Perhaps history knows me by another name. Either way my tale is a cautionary one you would do well to take seriously. I am or was a man of God but my tale has very little to do with Him and more to do with Man. This man.

It begins in the summer of 1644, during my forty fifth year. I had completed church business and was on my way to meet one of my older parishioners. I heard the church strike five as I hurried long the Coffin Path that connects the parish church and the main village about a mile away. For several hundred years it had been the final route travelled by parishioners on their way for burial in the grounds of the church. The funereal route took a south-easterly course through common land, from the long elevated part of the village before skirting the western perimeter of Pinsley Wood. The Path, well worn by generations of mourners, eventually joins a narrow lane leading to the tall imposing spire of the Church of St Peter and St Paul.

I was walking north west from the church. The air was fresh and warm; alive to the wind rippling the long grasses and wild flowers that graced the lovely idyll between the two halves of the village. During the day, Coffin Path, despite its name, was a charming place, a part of the earth that can invigorate the bleakest of souls. But when night fell it seemed to teem with voices so that the superstitious and the recently bereaved would never set foot on it, which in those days was nearly everyone.

And there I was, lost in my own thoughts regarding some unsettling business within the Bishopric and the Deacons of St Johns College in particular. My parish fell within the influence of St John's so I was effectively their man. Despite the vigour of my pace and the enriching fragrance of wild flowers in deep grass, the mesmerising hum of bees and the eye catching grace of white admirals, my mood had become dark and unchristian. With my eyes to the ground and my head covered by a black cowl I must have struck a doleful figure. In truth my soul had become irreparably consumed by self pity.

I first saw him when the path took me close to the ancient wood of Pinsley. The main carpet of bluebells had gone over but there was still much to admire in the many shades of green, and the ash and elms standing proud at the borders of this ancient woodland. I was struck by the sound of Jackdaws fussing in the long grass under the outer eaves, and a murder of crows cawing loudly in the treetops as they fought for territory. One large bird, almost the size of a raven came down from its roost and broke my reverie. Its sudden approach was startling. Huge frantic wings beat hard and brushed my face as it came too close before soaring away. I watched its judgemental eyes staring back, unblinking before I lost it in the low rays of the sun. A shadow crossed my path and the stranger was at my elbow.