More on the Night Walker.

What a difference a day makes. The walk was very dark tonight. The cloud base was low and heavy, there was a constant light rain falling, and the wind that had been blustery all day had dropped to nothing. It was warm, too.

Despite the low cloud, however, there was still enough light in the sky to see the trees silhouetted against it, and at one point I thought I saw something else. In a gap between the branches, there appeared to be the figure of person standing behind the hedge – apparently watching me. I thought it unlikely, and I thought it was probably an optical illusion, so I ignored it.

What wasn’t an illusion was the herd of heifers standing by the gate of a field off Mill Lane. I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to cows at night before, and so it was a pleasant surprise. I stood and talked to them for a little while, and they, no doubt, wondered what on earth this strange creature was. I had my hood up against the rain, you see, but I wasn’t wearing the elf coat. I was wearing the Swedish mountaineer’s coat, and the hood on that one is heavy and voluminous. It makes me look less like an elf and more like a fugitive from Masque of the Red Death.

There were no vehicles on the pub car park tonight, and nothing passed me either going out or coming back. It struck me more forcibly than ever just what a compelling experience it is to walk alone at night along a dark and silent country lane, although the exact nature of the compulsion eludes me. I suppose it has something to do with feeling that you’ve entered somebody else’s painted picture, and that you’re the only moving thing in it. And so I further suppose that it makes you feel a bit like the mysterious creature from an MR James story.