The Haunted Hare
Mary Allerton whose Ghostly Tales are still in print, and who lived in the parish till her death in 1981, recognised the place as the source for many of her stories. In 1973 she began a ‘Book’ to which anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute. The Book is still kept on the mantelpiece, and travellers, visitors, and locals alike are invited to take it down, to add to it, to read some of the entries. It is very old now so please treat it with care.
Jane Mahoney wrote this in 1993. She was born in a one room cottage on Home Farm and lived alone until her death at 96. In it she describes an encounter with a stranger one Christmas night.
I met him in the chapel bar, and it was just before Christmas, and all the decorations were out. I remember it was rammed at the bar and steaming; there were little red candles on all the tables.
Folks were coming in with snow on their collars and stamping their boots. I was sat there with glass of wine and a pork pie when I saw him – he was tall as a lamp – he had to duck his head under the door when he came in. He had sandy hair and a dark moustache, and his eyes were a thrill of gold. I recall he looked about him, but he didn’t seem to know anyone. He bought a half at the bar and a packet of scratchings and I don’t know why I noticed him how I did but there was something odd about him – something out of place.
I put my head down because I saw him coming and because I was sheepish of tall men. I pretended to be looking in my handbag for something and all the while wondering what it might be if someone asked me. Train ticket, I thought I’d say, except anyone who went asking would know I come from Margaret Street and never gone on a train since I was ten years old.
Anyhow, he sat down on my table, and he hunched up his shoulders, I noticed a yeasty smell on him and a faint rattle in his pocket and though it was hot he kept his coat buttoned up. He gripped up his drink and put it to his lips, and I swear I saw then a little whisker of wheat grass in his teeth. He saw me looking and snapped them shut.
I smiled him a smile to show I meant no harm and he tweezered out a curl of pork and offered it very awkward in his finger and thumb.
I said, ‘No, you’re alright,’ and he withdrew it at once and put it back in its packet. I said to him, ‘Are you visiting? Staying here?’ Mrs B didn’t always do rooms but on occasions she’d let out the front bedroom.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not.’ And his teeth tapped together on the T. They were long and buckish and moony white.
He stayed his hands flat on the tabletop.
I said then to make conversation that I hadn’t seen him, that I thought I knew everyone here about. I shrugged and he watched me without blinking, the hairs on his coat collar all pricked up.
I fingernailed my pie-crust – the raised little crimps came away in my hand – then after a while, he spoke: ‘You might of seen me, might of passed me, in the twilight, when you walk the path along the field.’
I was stumped. How could he have known it? I stared at him.
His eyes caught the candlelight, and he nodded. ‘I seen you, we’ve seen you – your head nodded – in your old gumboots, seen you stop still and watch for the owl, for the dormouse.’
I thought then of the night before, going by Home Farm: the frosted ruts on the path, bare branches, and the old barn owl on his moth-wings.
The door by the bar opened and I saw them from the estate come in – Tom, Drew, and Keavey – and it came back what they’d done, and I was in a pucker then and I went reaching to get my coat off the chair back. When I turned back around, he was gone.
But In the pocket of my coat was a long hare’s foot all sandy ginger fur. And underneath it, hidden, five curved claws.