Morton's Rise (A canal story for Halloween)

JOURNAL ENTRY

31st October, Friday (All Hallows’ Eve)

“The day grows thin
 Between light and darkness
 Heron spanned
 Silent as owl flight
 The canal listens.

Samhain, All Hallows’ eve,
 Nut-crack night
 Hop-tu-Naa
 Halloween
 The canal waits.”

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

Hush! This is the night of the thinning of the veil and who knows what is moving soft and silent along the towpath where the path grows narrow and the reeds rise tall? Is it fox, or owl, or maybe, on this one night, the canal has called ‘welcome’ into its world, something that doesn’t quite belong here.

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the darkness of All Hallows’ Eve to you, wherever you are.

Welcome! I am really pleased you have could make it on this wild and wet night. It’s a night to be inside, tucked close around the warm glow of a fire, and a good tale or two. The kettle is singing on the hob, the biscuit barrel has been recharged, and there is a seat waiting especially for you. Shake off your coat, and come inside. Welcome aboard.  

[MUSIC]

MORTON’S RISE

Well, the darkness now outlasts the daylight, and these are the russet and gold days when the canal slips into its autumn colours and the moorhens fuss among new carpets of fallen leaves. Tentative trails of coal and woodsmoke furtively climb upon untried winds and cabin lights flush and glow warm upon dark waters.

It is also the time for my annual bout of Freshers’ Flu, which has knocked me completely off my recording schedule and left me feeling rather wretched. However, it has given me the chance of doing something that I had wanted to do for a while – and that is record a special Halloween episode. After all, what can be more appropriate for a Nighttime on Still Waters podcast than to stoke the fire, turn off the cabin lights, and sit together in the ruby glow cast by glowing coals and listen as a strange story unfolds before us.

There’s been a long association between ghost stories and canals. I suppose that is to be expected from the close-knit, relatively isolated socially, communities who have worked and lived upon the navigation since its inception. Even among the more recent ranks of august experts on canals and canal-life, Tom Rolt, no less, has proffered his own collection of canal-based, ghost stories and weird tales (as this genre more properly is termed – as more often than not, they don’t involve ghosts in the traditional sense of the word). Whether this was in a show of his solidarity or as an act of rivalry to his erstwhile colleague and then more latterly opponent, Robert Aikman – himself a well-known and much respected writer of weird fiction. Most of which, can still be easily found today. Unlike most weird fiction of this time, which I tend to find appealingly homely and nostalgically naïve, some of Aikman’s short stories are genuinely disquieting.

I suppose, therefore, that it was only a matter of time before I told you my weird story.

Now, before I begin, I must start by saying that, temperamentally, I have great difficulty in finding room for ghosts in my universe. I am not, you might say, ‘a believer’. Call it lack of imagination, call it stubborn rationalism. I am at heart – and perhaps to my cost - a functionalist. I like a good ghost story and anthropologically can acknowledge their cultural and social importance. I certainly do not dismiss them as waffle and bunkum, as many of my more rationalist friends do. As far as I see it, stories (including ghost tales) emerge to address a societal, cultural or tribal need (warning, etc). Although, yes, as you might already know, I do have to hold my hand up to a tendency (when the moon is in the right quarter) to giving way to perhaps over sentimentalism and whimsy. And yes, there is an aspect to my character that edges towards romanticism – even if it is tempered by the sting of nettle and the barb of bramble. But ghosts – sorry, I do have difficulty with them. Lock me in the deserted tower of a ruined church on an owl-howling night and should any strange rustles occur, my immediate thoughts would turn to bats… or mice… or even rats. Spectral phenomena, alas, would be far down my list of possible causes.

With all that in mind, I want to share with you this story.

When I was in my teens, and coming towards the end of my school years, I went out with a girl called Tig, a Tomboy, and who possessed bewitching gypsy eyes and dimples. For some unfathomable reason Tig had become part of (and more surprisingly been accepted into) our childhood gang that had been made up of bored village lads and had been formed when we were still wearing short trousers. Tig wasn’t her real name, and I have no idea how she ended up with it. but Tig she was and I never thought to enquire beyond that. In many ways Tig and I were temperamentally opposites – and for a few short months we tested the veracity of that charming adage of opposites attract. Tig was into ghosts, the spirit world, and all that accompanied it. I because I was young and enamoured, went along with it. During the long vacation of that hot summer, Tig and I would wander the local churchyards and burial grounds of the nearby villages picking up any hint or sign from the great beyond. Being both young and penniless, the small commemoration garden (more a desolate waste tip) behind the Salem Baptist church was a particular favourite. Overhung by shaggy pines, it was secluded from prying eyes, and Tig and I would spend hour after hour talking about worlds beyond our reach and throwing stones at the cider bottles that the old-boys of the village had left propped on the mossy wall, as the sun slowly settled through the dense pine branches charging the world with the scent of warm bark, resin, and young excitement. No matter how a conversation started, the topic always seemed to gravitate to the spirit world and glimpsing signs of the life post-mortem. I think, to my credit, I did try to throw myself into this endeavour with us much candour as she. I am sure, I tell my cynical self, it wasn’t simply to extend the opportunity of enjoying the presence of those dimples and gypsy black eyes.

For Tig, the world was filled with signs – ‘signals from the nether regions’ she would disconcertingly call them. A dropped feather, the flash of spectrum caught on a window pane, an odd shaped leaf, a certain coloured stone. ‘Look!!’ she’d gasp, grabbing my arm tight – half in fear, half in excitement – ‘There!!’ And I would look, and there, cast adrift among the green-coloured glass pebbles sprinkled over a new grave-plot, would be the rain-bleached, crumpled remains of a Rizla packet. Leaning forward to read the newly chiselled lettering on the marble headstone. Her fingers digging even deeper into my arm. “Robert Woods. I knew him.” We all knew him, being a rather curmudgeonly reclusive type of fellow, much given to the bottle. He had lived two doors down from Debbie Piper in the year above us, down Blackwell Lane. “Robert Woods.” She intoned again. And then turning, still gripping tightly onto my arm, and looking fearfully into my eyes with those great dark, fathomless eyes, she’s whisper hoarsely into my ear, “He smoked roll ups.” For Tig, no further proof was needed. There could only be one reason for a Rizla packet to be there on that grave mound, at that particular time. Bob Woods was saying ‘Hello. I am still watching you, and you kids better not start trying to nick my scrumpy apples from the back garden, even though I have gone into the great beyond.” Looking into those deep dark eyes, I for one, was not about to disabuse her. But try as I might – and I think that there was a time, when I did try – I could never see or feel the things the way that Tig did. Ask me how an empty carton of Rizla cigarette papers got to be on that newly cut grave and I could have filled a couple of pages of foolscap with possible reasons, but that it was purposely left by a bad-tempered and distrustful departed soul to communicate with us, I have to admit, would not have even entered my mind.

All of this, is a rather roundabout way of prefacing what I am about to tell you. To assure you, that I am not, by nature, an overly sensitive or easily gulled kind of chap. I maybe temperamentally quite sensitive, but for good or ill, I am not easily suggestable or sensitive to things post-mortem. Which makes my story all the more puzzling and, after all these years, I still can’t really find a plausible explanation for it. Perhaps you will be more successful. What really did happen at Morton’s Rise?

At the outset, I said that this tale involves canals, and so it does. In fact, it is a rather famous stretch of the canal that I am sure, if you have travelled to any extent on the system, you will probably be quite familiar with. However, for those who don’t know this area, I will start with an explanation of the particular geography of this part of the canal, because its very distinctive landscape forms such an integral part to the story.     

The section in question, was not far from where I was living at the time and provided a very convenient morning and evening walk for our dog, at the time, a mongrelly Jack Russell called Peg. Consequently, Peg and I, got to know this stretch of towpath very well – particularly, in the summer evenings, where the walk often took on a rather convivial social aspect, meeting other fellow dog walkers. However, in the winter or on inclement days, especially early mornings, it could be quite a lonely, solitary place. Something, that, as you probably already know, I relish. It is a good place to let your thoughts run free, and for time, somehow, slide past according to its own pace.

The canal itself runs between a counterpane of pasturage catering, at the time, for mixed livestock. My walk would begin above a pair of locks by which the water descends just over 25 feet to a pound, which is the stretch of water between one lock and another, which is roughly 2/3 of a mile. You can exit the towpath at this point on a turnover bridge and cut across some fields to the village where I, at the time, was living which was just over a mile away. All in all, it made a nice, if short, circular walk. However, on days I wanted to get just away from everyone, Peg and I would strike off, for about 300 yards, along to a single lock (known locally as Morton’s Rise) and then down onto the long pound known locally simply as the ‘long’. It is this long section for which this part of the canal is renowned, some might say notorious. It stretches for nearly thirteen and a half miles long without locks or bridges. What makes it so notable is that its main geographical feature is a modest hill formed after the last Ice Age called The Dread or more properly Draid Hill. For millennia, this gentle, but lonely blister on an otherwise flat plateau stood among a sea of woodland and then following the great clearings, a plain of agricultural fields. That is until the end of the 18th century and the fag-end of the canal revolution when, at the rather later instigation of a landowner and bankrupted canal engineer, the navvies arrived to dig what was forlornly hoped to be their golden goose. It has to be said that the endeavour was greeted by the locals with less than rapt enthusiasm, they were hoping for a railway line complete with nice little station and ticket desk to hurtle them into modernity. The whole enterprise was poorly funded and, for that reason, as a cost saving exercise, it was decided that rather than dig a tunnel or blast a cutting through Draid Hill, that the canal should follow the contour around it. Hence the long thirteen-mile pound, that swings its laborious way around two thirds of The Dread. Something that has caused more than one boater to despairingly cry ‘Aren’t we ever going to get past this damned hill!’ Now, I am sure, if you have done any boating on the British canals, you might understandably be thinking, “What is all the problem about? Thirteen miles without a lock in sight? Bliss!” Generally, you’d be right. What makes this particular section so infamous is that the curve of the canal is so shallow and the surrounding topography so featureless, that you can, in places, see a good two miles ahead of you. This can give the impression that for hour after hour you do not feel that you have made any progress at all. I am sure more than one listener by now knows exactly the place I am describing and have too fallen under that glowering spell of Draid Hill.          

Local antiquarians and amateur etymologists, as is their nature, have long argued about the derivations of Draid Hill. One of the most popular theories is that it comes from the Old English drȳge meaning dry, while others, of a more fanciful disposition, argue that it could be a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon dryhten meaning ruler or lord suggesting that it supports their equally fanciful contention that here the local chieftain would hold assembly to dispense barbarous justice and attend to local civic matters and disputes. Whatever the origins, and these are among the more plausible, over the centuries the hill has more commonly been referred to as Dread Hill, or more recently, just as ‘The Dread’. As you might expect, a rich and colourful seam of folklore and stories has subsequently developed – usually being traced back no earlier than late Victorian times. Stories of witchcraft, cunning folk, black magic, ghosts, arcane and barbaric rituals – and more recently Satanic worship – all of which are completely unsubstantiated. In fact, were a visitor to visit The Dread’s gentle scarp they would be hard pressed to find a spot less conducive or less facilitative either in terms of practicality or atmosphere for wild and orgiastic ceremonies, on this unassuming, benign, sheep and cow cropped open grassland that rolls beneath their feet. However, none of this quells the ardour of youthful imaginations and stories of covertly spied misdoings and scandal that abound school playground and pub snug alike.

All this is a great pity, because I have always found the hill a pleasant sight and its presence a pleasing distraction from an otherwise flat – and in winter – fairly monotonous landscape that lies below and around it.

Interestingly, this little piece of local colour has also become inculcated into canal folklore. The number of times I have heard canal-folk and more latterly narrowboaters confidently explain to me that the hill is referred to as ‘The Dread’ because it appears to follow you interminably giving the impression that despite all the effort you are just not progressing, and that for the poor old working boaters of old, battling against the elements, the sight of it was so demoralising that it gained such an awful sobriquet.  

I include all this information so that you might have some grasp of the geographical peculiarities, as well as the social context, in order for you to try to make sense of what happened on the dull misty November morning at Morton’s Rise.

My account proper, so to speak, began in the half-light of one unusually mild and misty morning in mid-November. As I needed to clear my head and stretch my legs, Peg and I had walked a good six or so miles beyond Morton’s Rise lock – possibly more. The swirl of mist and the relatively featureless nature of the towpath made it difficult to ascertain my exact position. As often happens in mist, the horizons of the world appear to shrink and contract. Draid Hill appeared as little more than a hazily vague darker shape; more presence than physical actuality.  It was a strange morning and one that seemed to me to be full of promise – and yet, with it that slight unease that the promise perhaps might not be to my liking. Maybe it was the way the still air gave the feel of the caught breath of anticipation. The sullen mist hanging suspended motionless and then suddenly giving way to an unseen, unfelt eddy that made it swirl and writhe. Maybe it was the unusual warmth that made everything feel unnatural or possibly preternatural. Having covered the first mile or two, I had begun to realise that my choice of clothing, a thick woollen jumper and cagoule, was a bad one. I quickly began to feel over-hot and with it came that combination of clumsy lethargy with uncomfortable irritability that often attends it. Nevertheless, I had decided to make the best of it, and while some may have called it a day and my present vista dismal, there was beauty to be found. The shrivelled black heads of the hedgerow briars were pearled silver, and crimson rosehips hung like lanterns along the way. Even the way the mist hung and then danced above waters, casting tiny glances of light to shimmer and sparkle, had an alluring beauty to it.

I had been walking for nigh on an hour and a bit and the cloying air, the suffocating blankness that seemed to be hemming me in, encroaching on every side, together with the damp warmth of that morning were starting to get to me and I decided that enough was enough. Moreover, a vision was beginning to form in my mind of my kitchen table at home upon which sat a plate piled high with hot buttered toast and accompanied by a hearty mug of tea. And so, I the end, I decided to call it a day, turn back, and head for home. However, as I was about to turn, in front of me, through the dense mist, I caught a glimpse of the unmistakeable shape of a boat making its way up the canal in my direction. It was difficult to see clearly, but the lines reminded me very much of the old working boats that used to ply these waters when I was a boy. Now, being a bit of a canal buff in those days, I was intrigued. Narrowboats and river cruisers are two a penny around here and so there was nothing strange in the appearance of this boat. Those of you who have cruised this section in more recent time during the summer will know, possibly to your cost, just how popular this part of the canal is. However, the appearance of one of the old working boats, is always a bit of a novelty and one that promised to turn this walk into a bit of an occasion. Annoyingly, the mist kept blotting out the shape, but I was pretty certain that I could spot, from time to time the lumpen shape of a person standing at the tiller. The mist and the silvery light combined to create an almost surreal atmosphere. There was a strange stillness and serenity about the scene. It was almost as if I were viewing an old Daguerreotype plate photograph, but somehow, from within it. The mist must have muffled the sound of the motor. There was utter silence.   

It was at this point that I called Peg to heel. Whether, it was the claggy mist that seemed to claustrophobically envelop us and reduce our universe into this tiny isolated grey world of a small patch of towpath, or whether she just sensed something was not quite right, but she had uncharacteristically begun to drop behind me. Momentarily, I thought about walking up to meet the oncoming boat, but, for this morning, I really had had enough. Instead, I thought, if I turned around now, I could get back to Morton’s Rise lock and wait for it there. Besides, it would be nice to see the boat through and perhaps lend a hand with the gates, particularly if this was single-crewed.

However, before I turned, I stood for a while, gazing down that great long straight. The hedges each side were low and give an airy feel to this section. On a bright winter’s night, sharp with frost and under a great bowl of stars, it’s a wonderful place. Hares jink and dart across the ploughed furrows and frozen puddles. Owls call from scattered copse to scattered copse. A place of shattered silences. It’s a spot always worth a stop at it, no matter the weather. To take a deep breath, appreciate its singularity. If I was a pipe smoking man, to pull out my pipe, struck a match between the bowl of my cupped hands, light it and contentedly puff away.

There was no doubt about it, the oncoming boat, still not much more than an ill-defined blotch, was one of the old working boats. This was before the more recent trend by some boat-builders to build new boats using their general design and lines. In those days, the majority of canal boats that I encountered were wooden cruisers and more recently glass-fibre hulled gin-tubs. Whilst it was not particularly unusual to see a working boat out and about – in fact, a little further south a few were still being used to convey products to canal-side industries; although often it was more as a marketing ploy than as a serious business venture – most, canal carriers had ceased work; their boats either being scrapped or converted into houseboats. Consequently, the sight that greeted me on that morning was rare enough for me to kick myself for not having brought my camera along with me. Fancying myself as a bit of an amateur photograph – strictly back and white, don’t you know? – I could see, once she had got a little closer, what an incredibly atmospheric photograph this would make. By now, I could make out the snub upward curve of her bow, the triangular blot of a cratch board. I could also discern that she was riding quite high. Must be empty. The little figure at the tiller, was still just a hazy blob. Unmoving, immobile. Male or female, young or old, I could not tell. A person, as yet, devoid of feature or humanity... or even, as my mind macabrely whispered, life!

I had stood there probably no more than a minute or so, but the boat had made no discernible distance and Peg was beginning to get restless. ‘I’ll go ahead to Morton’s Rise lock,’ I thought to myself and wait for it to arrive. There, I could at least sit on the lock’s balance beam and rest my legs. By the pace of her, it’ll take some while to cover the distance, so I might as well wait in some comfort. So, I turned and headed for home. The wan disk of a pale sun, sullenly glowing no brighter than a cloud shrouded moon, momentarily broke though, only to be extinguished moments later by the rolling mist. I dug my hands deeper into my pocketed and trudged back along the towpath, aware, more by impression than by actual observable fact, of the dark brooding mass of The Dread over my left shoulder. Peg seemed a bit brighter now that we were on the return journey. No doubt she had her mind fixed upon the big breakfast bowl that awaited her and the enveloping comforting embrace of the old armchair that she had adopted as her own. Her fee for sharing it with anyone were continuous strokes of her ears.   

As we walked, pearls of mist danced opaquely in the air, suspended on the winds and eddies that blew down from The Dread. Tiny globes the colour of quick silver and mother of pearl. Every now and then, I could feel a trickle of damp run down the side of my face or neck, as if a fine drift net of rain was showering down upon me. From time to time, I quickly glanced behind me, as one does when one is aware of a presence following. More out of curiosity than anything. The squat and silent bulk with its motionless figure, still indistinct and swathed in the greyness, like an old grainy black and white photograph was still making its slow and soundless progress along the long stretch. Now slightly, if I was not imagining it, larger than it was before. It was unlikely to be gaining on me. I had put on a spurt and was covering a good four miles an hour – my legs were stronger and well used to the hike in those days. There was no sense of movement at all, but then again it certainly wasn’t smaller, which would have been the case, if it had actually been stationary. Besides, I could tell it wasn’t tied up, as the shifting mist revealed glimpses of canal clear of each side of her gunwales. I figured that at our respective present rates of progress I would get to the lock a good fifteen minutes before her. I still had a fancy to wait and see her through, but would leave the actual decision once I got there. The suffocating damp mildness were beginning to get under my skin and that steaming mug of tea was invitingly calling my name.        

One thing I did notice was that at this point there was a curious illusion being played by the flat, straight and relatively featureless topography of the land and canal combined with the mist. All sense of movement seemed to be lost giving the impression that the boat was stationary, held suspended in time. Now being a regular user of the Long, I am well used to the deceptive sense of motionless that you can get when watching something approaching you directly. However, perhaps due to the particular atmospheric conditions, on this day, the effect was so marked and struck me strange enough to begin to check its progress against the second hand on my watch. Fifteen seconds, thirty, forty-five. A good minute and there was absolutely no sign of getting larger or coming closer. Perhaps the mist had a foreshortening effect, as if looking at a distant on-coming object through a telescope. Moreover, the figure on the stern deck behind the dumpy rise of the boatman’s cabin with its chimney, that I could just about discern, remained completely static. The remarkable scene was almost like something preserved in aspic, apart from one tiny detail which only now I had begun to observe. The faintest trace of a red pin-prick of a glow that hung above the cabin roof just in front of the figure’s head. ‘Ah! At least some signs of life,’ I said to myself. ‘The captain’s broken open his packet of Woodbines or perhaps more appropriately Capstans!’  The sight of that dim glow briefly flaring and then dulling to being almost unobservable had a startling and grounding effect. What was building in my mind as a romantically nostalgic encounter with the past immediately dissolved into the prosaic mundanity of the nicotine-reeked, diesel-fumed, gob-spitting, present. Oh well, in such ways are our dreams dispelled by the cold light of day. Once more, Peg and I put our heads down to cover the four and a half miles or so left to Morton’s Rise lock and then the bridge and over the fields to home.

I am not sure when it was that I first noticed it. From time to time, I had continued to keep glancing over my shoulder on the boat’s progress. Although, in all honesty, that glimpse of a glowing dog-end had, for some reason, poured enough cold water for the spell to be broken. I think, it was more the fascination of the way the climatic conditions and the lay of the land had created this illusion of a stationary boat when it was clearly moving. After all, it was not getting smaller the further I walked away from it. ‘Soon,’ I thought, ‘this illusion must too be broken.’ For those of you familiar with this stretch might remember seeing the stump of a large tree, which stands about three or four feet above the ground. Well, in those days, it was a large ash tree and one very large limb of which grew out over the canal at right angles to the trunk. It was rather ghoulishly known as the ‘gibbet.’ Stories used to circulate the playground and whispered under cover in our secret field-corner dens of how, on windless moonless nights the sound of a rope creaking from the gibbet’s limb could still be heard and the dark shape of the body of a highwayman could be seen still swinging… when there was no wind to swing it. Tig claimed that when she once passed that spot, she had heard a highwayman wolf-whistling at her. No one really believed her, and I, in all honesty, I suspected that the cause was a little more earthbound and corporeal than a ghostly highwayman. In fact, there was never any indication that the tree was ever used as a gibbet. However, it did make a great swing. The farmer on whose field it stood, a red-faced old boy, called Mr Baldwin, would let us village lads and girls, onto his land in the summer to use it to string up a rope over the branch. As is usually the way with these things, over the years, its attraction as a swing declined and more mundane uses were found for it. Often, on balmy summer evenings, dog-walkers and lovers (an odd, but affable mix) might be heard to say, “Let’s walk down to the Gibbet and back.’ For boaters, it took on an altogether different significance, in that it was really the only single feature that broke up the monotony of the long stretch. It crossed my mind that, sooner or later, the oncoming boat must be getting close to the Gibbet and that would give me some marker by which I could chart its progress.  

I therefore strode back off towards Morton’s Rise for a good few minutes and then looked back. The Gibbet could clearly be seen on the offside bank and, sure enough, a finger-nail width of silver light stood between it and the boat. Now, I had something concrete to work with. I stood for a little while, but that finger-nail of light stubbornly refused to widen. It still showed every sign of being stationary. So getting a little restless, I carried on my way. I made myself walk for a solid five minutes, I even checked it against my watch, having to fight that almost childish impulse to sneak a glance back. I wanted to make sure that the boat was given enough chance to make an observable difference in its position in relation to the solid immovable bulk of the Gibbet. The seconds trudged as heavily around my watch dial as my feet did upon the mist and dew-drenched towpath. After five minutes had passed, and, with an almost masochistic glee I held off for another twenty seconds for good measure and to prove that I was a master over my infantile compulsions, I turned and looked again. Yes, the Gibbet now undoubtedly lay behind the boat. Yes, the seemingly static boat with the hunched figure with its faint pulse of cigarette glow at the tiller, was definitely moving. Moreover, although still very indistinct, the shape taking the impression of a rather smudged charcoal sketch, the boat was getting bigger. With all my stopping and starting, it clearly was not just making progress but now was in fact slightly gaining on me.

The mystery solved, I started off again, albeit at a more leisurely pace, Peg trotting along happily ahead. Every so often a breeze would stir just above the water, rattling the mist-wreathed reeds and making the cobwebs strung across the briar and teasel heads shimmer with diamond light. The air was cut by that distinctly metallic canal-smell of wet chains and ironwork. And at last, the soft glowing disk of the sun began to emerge, a palm and a half’s width above the eastern horizon, cutting through the thick wool of murkiness that had hitherto concealed it. A newer, stronger shimmering silvery light bathed the canal and towpath. Soon the sun would properly break through and burn up the remaining mist. We were set for a glorious autumnal day. Thick crimson braids of black bryony berries festooned the hawthorn hedging the towpath from the fields and to my left, across the dull gleam of the canal, the steepening curve of slope to Braid Hill. Old man’s beard, wet and matted clung damply to banks of thinning nettle, dock, and blackthorn.

I suppose by now I was about halfway to Morton’s Rise and with the spell of the mysterious boat behind me broken, my mind wandered to other things in the way that minds set free from a puzzle often do. I have no idea how much time had elapsed before I checked on the boat’s progress, but I imagine it must have been ten to fifteen minutes. Strangely, what actually caught my attention and brought me back to earth was nothing to do with the canal. A spiral of wind must have blown up Draid Hill and suddenly for a second or two, The Dread, clear of mist, appeared to float suspended above the earth, like the hull of a huge upturned boat. A strange, almost eerie sight. Part gothic, part something much, much more mythic – primaeval even. As I say, it lasted only for a second or two before its dark mass once again became swathed in great skeins of mist – now, so dense in places that it took on the consistency of fog.   

My attention now caught, I looked down the canal. There sat the silent boat, still with every impression of being totally stationary and motionless, apart from that almost imperceptible slow pulse and burn of cherry-red. There was no doubt that it was bigger – although still a good distance away, far enough away, I reasoned, not to break the climatic illusion in which it was being cast; its earie silence and lack of any suggestion of forward movement. The turbulent air that had momentarily exposed The Dread was apparently still at play here at canal level. For alongside the boat, on the towpath, an eddying mist parted and seemed to reveal another vague bulky shape. At this distance, it was difficult to make out what it was before the mist descended wrapping itself around it once again. You know how sometimes you can feel your mind racing to make sense of a surprising shape. A windblown paper bag skittering along a rain-washed street at night takes on the unmistakable form of a rat. A dressing gown hung from the nail on the bedroom door, in the half light of dawn, takes the shape of an impossibly large gorilla. I could sense my mind spinning. “Is that actually a horse?” I disbelievingly said – and I am sure, in my incredulity, I did speak it out aloud. “A horse-drawn barge! Now I am seeing things!!” On the one hand, it did explain the lack of noise, but I knew there were no horse drawn boats operating in the area and no news of any coming. Moreover, those that were still in use were for carrying tourists and trippers. The boats were covered and fitted with seats, and looked nothing like this one (or what I could dimly see as this one). Once again, I was intrigued and doubly kicking myself for not having brought my camera.            

I waited to see if the mist would clear again to get a better view. It could after all, be just another trick of the light and be nothing more enigmatic than a larger than normal bramble bush. After a while, the figure again became visible – or at least, if not visible, at least it was discernible that something was there. Once again, the silent maddening gnat-dance of mist obfuscated my vision, but what I now began to see shaped itself in my mind, not as a horse – I wasn’t going completely mad – but that of a rather dumpy figure. The shape of it suggested that it might be wearing heavy layers of coat and skirts that came down to the ankles and the larger than normal head be explained as an old-fashioned bonnet. The image forming in in my mind was that of an old washerwoman that would feature in the illustrations of some of my childhood books. The situation began to feel like some bizarre gestalt test, where a psychoanalyst puts in front of brain-fuddled patient a series of ink blots and asks them to describe what they see. I am not sure what a psychoanalyst would make of my attempts so far, but my mind was certainly playing tricks with me.

I could feel the insistent muzzle of Peg nudging the back of my leg. I also began to be aware of a darkness seeping across the level fields. The sun’s advance had proved too premature for the persistent clag. The mist, pooling into dips and shadowed corners with the inexorable relentlessness of an incoming tide, was not only returning from the west, but it appeared to be getting thicker. Even the great bulk of The Dread was almost, at times, obscured. I waited for the shape on the towpath before me to metamorphize and take on a new shape. But it didn’t. Even as one more swirl of mist threatened to blot it completely out of sight, the impression of an old woman, somewhat eccentrically dressed, remained. The more I looked, the more certain I was. I thought I could even make out, protruding from the hem of the voluminous skirts, the outline of some heavy boots, like those worn on building sites or even, I remember thinking chillily, like those worn by the boaters from long ago.  

It was a peculiar feeling, looking down the long stretch of canal shrouded in mist and seeing this vignette, for all the world like an image caught on a magic lantern slide.  This heavily bundled figure, standing motionless beside an, ostensibly, equally motionless working boat. A moment of history frozen in time. But what struck me as most shocking wasn’t the scene itself, but that the old woman (I don’t know why I pictured her as elderly, that was just the impression I got) was bent completely double. Her body at right-angles to her thickly-skirted legs. I must concede here, that at this point it appeared just as an ill-formed smudge and I still wasn’t totally convinced that it wasn’t just some shrub growing a little taller and, in the mist, was cast into the illusion of a human simulacrum. The mind can play the oddest tricks. As I stood there watching, the mist shifted like scuffed chalk, playing around this figure, that was still about the size of my thumb. No matter how long I stood looking, my perception failed to grasp any distinguishing detail or feature. The most unnerving thing about it all was that, I got the chilling and distinct impression that whoever, or whatever it was, despite being bent double, it was looking directly back at me.

Despite the unseasonably clammy warmth, a chill ran through my body. As I have already made clear, I am generally not one for having morbid or grotesque visions and, rooted to the spot, I remember the feeling of my brain scrambling to make sense of this unsettling image; a dog, a tree stump (that I had somehow missed), shadows. But in all the distortions and shifting shades of that swirling mist, that squat image remained resolutely unchanged. I tore my eyes away, and, calling Peg to heel, marched forward. Again, quickening my step. I was no longer sure if I cared very much to await at Morton’s Rise for the arrival of this boat or to share a cheery greeting with its motionless grey occupant and strangely unnerving companion.    

Immediately, the desire to keep turning round to check its progress behind me, battled with my desire not to know. Unlike before, this felt no longer like a light-hearted game that one plays with oneself to break the monotony of a long and familiar walk. There was an earnestness now. I felt catapulted back to the time as a child I scared myself to death when, at one birthday party, playing with my friends the party game of ‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf?’, when to their consternation – and I suspect sneers – I had convinced myself there really were wolves creeping up on me and I ran screaming from the garden into the arms of my mother. We never fully leave the child in us behind.

The brooding mass of The Dread rising indistinctly in the mist to my left, ill-formed, ethereal, more impression than substance, like a pencil sketch half erased under a sky of water-downed milk. Directly in front, along the line of the canal, the mist partially lifted for a moment or two. Joy! I could make out the distinct rise in the towpath that signalled Morton’s Rise lock. I judged, at my current pace, Peg and I would be there in a quarter of an hour. Perhaps less, if we picked up our pace further.

I quickly glanced behind. The dark bulk of the boat appeared a little closer. Was I imagining it, or was it slowly gaining on me? It was still a good way off, and I was aware how deceptive this stretch of canal could be in even the most favourable conditions without the distorting and discomposing effect of this infuriating mist. There was still utter silence, apart from the stabbing calls of jackdaws circling above The Dread. However, I was sure I could make out more detail though. Surely that was a big tunnel lamp mounted at the top of the deck board. The triangular board that stands at the prow of the boat. Originally, it was there to stop water from leaky top gates or persistent prow-on rain getting into the hold. I could also discern – or at least form the image in my mind – the wooden top planks that ran the entire length of the boat from the top of the deck board to where I imagined the hunched boatman’s cabin started. On laden trips, canvas was hung from these planks forming the shape of an asphalt-clothed Toblerone. One thing that it did confirm to me was that, if this was a working boat (real or preserved) it wasn’t carrying. Maybe it was because it was just still too far away for any forward motion to be detected, but that illusion of stasis still remained. Still that indistinct figure at the tiller. Motionless, as if it were a mere mannequin placed for a joke on the stern deck, staring sightlessly ahead. By now, I could almost even entertain such an outrageously absurd reason, if it were not for that dim flicker of a cigarette, dull ruby, flaring scarlet for a split second and then dissolving into grey. That one signifier of movement, of life, to this static tableau made this scene all the more earie and unnerving.  

But I have to admit here in all honesty and for the veracity of this record none of this was the cause for the icy grip of apprehension, even barely contained terror, that seemed to overwhelm me. It was that dumpy figure alongside. This too had perceptibly moved closer and the shape was beginning to resolve itself into the undeniable form of an elderly woman bent double at the waist, dressed bizarrely in old fashioned clothes, her head clad in cloth bonnet, reminiscent of those mobcaps favoured in the old days by working-women and house servants, at right angles to her bent torso, and appearing to be staring right at me – or, at least, at where I was standing. 

I determined to pull myself together and break this spell that was being cast by this ghastly clammy mist which was playing such vile tricks on my nerves. I hazarded that by now we were probably within hailing distance. I raised my hand, with my hiking stick, and as cheerily as I could manage, yelled, “Hello there!” I kept waving as I heard my voice, flat and empty, deadened by the dulling effect of the mist trail away. Neither boat nor woman moved. I waved again, and whistled (more to still my nerves than anything). “I’ll help you through the lock!” I yelled. Although, by now, that was the last thing I wanted to do. However, if I could get a response, any response, even a raised hand from the figure at the tiller, I knew I would feel a hell of a lot better. A scarlet flicker. The mist rolled and eddied. I raised my hand again, but half way up, I lost heart, or courage, or both. I was also stung by the heat of that rather childish indignation when a friendly approach is apparently rebuffed. I wasn’t going to spend much more time here, making a fool of myself only to be ignored. I took some meagre comfort in telling myself that with the attitude they had so far shown they jolly well deserved to work Morton’s Rise on their own, elderly or not.

An even thicker veil of mist rolled in. Seemingly folding down from the very slopes of Draid Hill, billowing wraith-like across the couple of fields and then pooling down into the long straight trench of the canal blotting out all but a hundred or so yards, a furlong at the most, of the world. I pressed forward, into the stultifying and cloying murk.

I am not sure what went through my head at this time, if anything. My only aim was to cover the distance with as much speed as possible. The disquieting feeling of someone or something pacing me from behind, dogging my heels (and yet who seemed to resolutely ignore my presence, even if, in truth, they still were a fair way back) irked me considerably – the recognition of the unreasonable petulance of my own response made matters even worse – it all made me jumpy and on edge. In an ill-mood, I irritably wielded my hiking stick to thrash at the willowherb and clematis cobwebbed vegetation and the bedraggled remnants of this summer’s dock, as I strode quickly past. It is something I never do and take a dim view when seeing it done by others, but I was quickly feeling nothing in the world seemed real. I knew from experience that Morton’s Rise must be drawing closer, incrementally, step-by-step, but the thick swirl of suffocating mist in front of me meant that any feeling of progress was lost.    

The stretch behind me, although misty, was nowhere near as thick, as the stretch before me. I wasn’t too alarmed at this, the moving water of the lock’s by-wash can often attract mist, and also the fields in this area, standing as they do by the easterly flank of Draid Hill, can tend towards the boggy at certain times of the year. However, whether this this actuality was a blessing or a curse in this particular instance was in question. I am not sure whether I would have preferred that the uncanny presence behind me of the boat and its hobbled figure were hidden or in plain sight. But the fact was that, if not quite in plain sight, they remained shrouded but visible the entire time. We did at least have this in common, we all were heading into the clammy heart of a wet shrouded blankness.

I checked behind. Yes, the silent looming mass of the boat was still there and now much closer. I could make out the rope-work button fender sitting on the snub stempost of the prow. Although still unreadable, I could also pick out that there was lettering on the front deck board. For now, a wraith of mist blotted out the figure at the stern, although my now febrile imagination could swear that the dull ember of a cigarette’s glow could still sporadically be seen. And alongside, the hunch-backed shape of the old woman stood like twisted anthracite scooped out from a grate. Motionless, except for the way the hem of her long coat trembled, almost imperceptibly, in the eddying breeze. The face under the crimped fold of that bonnet was still an ill-defined blur, but I was aware of that menacing stare which seemed to bore right into me, turning my blood cold.     

Almost in panic, I decided to alter my tactic. Instead of trying to fight the urge to look behind me, I walked for a twenty to thirty feet backwards. Looking directly both at the silent boat and the haunting figure alongside. Still neither moved, apart from the hem of the coat and the frills of the mobcap. Realising that it was utterly ludicrous to even consider trying to walk the entire distance to Morton’s Rise backwards, I turned and counted 150 steps. I have already mentioned about the way my mind was connecting what I was experiencing and the rather macabre parody of the childhood game ‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf?’ I think it was with that in mind when I had counted in my head to 150, I violently swung round on my heels, as if to try and catch my pursuers out in the act of moving.

I wished I hadn’t. Almost as if in punishment for my childish prank, I was dismayed to see that they had both gained considerably on me. The boat must now have been roughly only 150 yards behind me. It had more than halved the distance since I had last seen it. I remember being conscious of the silence and my mind trying to grapple with it. I could no longer convince myself that the conditions played by the mist was its cause. Against my will, my eyes were drawn to the shape of that squat hunched figure beside it; it was also appreciably closer. Had she run? The idea was preposterous. She remained static, unmoving. It was almost as if someone was playing a trick on me and had been placing a cardboard cutout behind me – except for those small movements when material was caught by the movement of air. I was beginning to be able to make out the creased features of a woman, scoured by the weather and hard work. However, what captivated all my attention was that the upturned face, held rigidly in my direction was completely devoid of expression, apart from an impression of dark fire of malevolent eyes. Even as I tried to tear my eyes from this menacing sight, it forcibly struck me. The old woman might be playing games with me. It would be easy enough for her to stop stock-still each time I turned. But how did that boat do it? A boat cannot instantly cease all forward movement, and yet I could tell by the way the clump of bulrushes on the opposite bank stayed in line with one of the boat’s uprights that served to hold the top planks in place, the boat was not moving at all, neither, I suddenly noticed with an icy fear, was there any bow wash.   

By now I was thoroughly unnerved and my mind tilted, thoughts squealing wildly like the unspooling of a coarse fisherman’s line when a pike has been caught. Nothing seemed to make any sense. Nothing seemed real. My walking pace hastened into a trot. All the time I was aware of that bulky dogged presence over my left shoulder and the one on the towpath directly behind me. Even at my increased speed, I was sure the boat was keeping pace with me. A quick glance behind and I could clearly make out the dull gleam of the polished metal T-stud on the boat’s fore-deck, and the neat hemp-coloured coil of rope that attended it. I was even subconsciously aware of the silver pearling of mist drops attached to the coarse fibres of the line. The diagonal name painted in the typical fashion of canal workers, swirling blocked letters, picked out in red and white, ‘Rawls and co.’. God, that was going back a bit. I remember my dad reminiscing about them and how, of an evening when there wasn’t too much left in the pantry, he and his dad would sometimes wait at the rusting hulk of Buckman’s wharf (the other side of the village), sharing a smoke, for one of the chaps from Rawls to come along and from whom they’d buy or barter a rabbit or two – sometimes, if lucky a hare or even a pheasant – freshly caught from the fields of Longman’s estates and filched, no doubt, from right under the nose of their cider-soaked gamekeeper.        

I’ve always rather taken to the lines of the old working boats, particularly the bow or prow. The snub-nosed-upturned rise, reminiscent of the old tug boats, I felt gave them a particularly affable, chirpy or chipper look. It evokes in me a similar feeling to one coming across a bumble bee happily buzzing around a lavender bush. I have to admit being a little disappointed when the newer styling of narrowboats, catering for the leisure and liveaboard market, arrived with their straighter – some might say sleeker – profile. To my eye, they somehow lost a lot of that old unpolished character and charm.

However, that friendly profile was shifting to one that was far more threatening and sinister – like a labrador when you realise that it is no longer playing with you, but is in earnest.

My nerves were now in tatters, I freely admit that I started to run, Peg bounding along beside me, expecting, at any moment, in the periphery of my left eye, the emergence of the silent dark ominous shape of a boat’s prow. For the first time, I began to acknowledge, with a thick sense of dread, that there was a very real likelihood that I would not be able to beat it to the lock.

The crest of the Dread once more broke through the mist, suspended above an ocean of grey-white like a solitary dark island amidst a desolate seascape. There is a difference between mist and fog and I remember having to read about it in my Geography text book at school, but the subtle nuances of measurements of visibility have long eluded me. But those hundred or so yards up to Morton’s Rise was by now completely suffocated in what can only be described as a thick, ‘pea-souper’ of a fog.

Bearing the strain no longer, once more I turned completely, and froze in my steps. The boat and the figure were now no more the 50 yards behind me. A reek of diesel stung the back of my nose wrapped in the scent of something undefinable, the scent that can hit you standing beside a fallen oak in an ancient woodland in the rain. Why could I smell the boat’s engine but still not hear it? The shadowy figure at the tiller still stood stock still. Although I could now make out the flat cap that it wore which left the wearer’s face in shadow. The cigarette flared red and then died away. More pressingly to my mind, the hunched, bent-doubled, figure alongside remained totally motionless. I cannot tell you what made me respond in the way I did, why my first reaction to the sight of this poor woman who must clearly be having a miserable time of it, trudging through the damp mist on a day like this was one of fear and loathing, but it was. Perhaps it was the way she just stood, brazen, unabashed. Her head almost below the curved line of her shoulders, with that weather-lined expressionless face, unflinchingly looking directly at me. And by now, at this distance, I was in no two minds that it was me at which she was looking.

“Hang it!” I scolded myself crossly. Among the seething broth of my emotions, I could feel an irked anger beginning to rise. Anger at myself for behaving in such a childishly stupid and unreasonable way. Had the day been a normal sunny day, I had no doubt that we would by now be walking together along the bank together, cheerily sharing pleasantries, passing on news, enjoying the sun’s warmth on our shoulders. It was this confounded mist that had somehow got under my skin. But I also suddenly felt maddened by them; the man at the tiller and his hunched companion. The complete disregard – rebuff even – of any of my attempts to pleasantly greet them, when plainly they – or at least she – could see me. How insufferably rude of them. Temperamentally, I am the type of chap that generally tends to take such boorish behaviour as a provocative challenge. In such cases, I will go out of my way to make things as difficult as possible in order to evoke, at least, a grudging acknowledgement of my presence – even if that meant stamping on their toes. As I felt the rage rise, I felt the old me returning. Fight or flight? Well, today, I had enough of fleeing. Now it was time to take the battle to them on my terms.

Gripping my walking stick firmly in my hands, I whistled to Peg who had disappeared in front on me in the mirk, to come back. I started back down the towpath away from Morton’s Rise towards the old woman. The hunched aspect of her stance gave her the appearance of a creature about to pounce. My steps slowed. I waved again with forced, may be even sarcastic, jollity. But there was no reaction from her or the figure at the tiller. I tried to match stare for stare and looked directly into her eyes.

I turned.
 Threw down my stick
 And ran, aware of Peg yelping in fear around my feet.  

Since then, I have retraced my steps over and over. I could not have been far from Morton’s Rise, but it felt like I was running for ever. My chest burned, and I could feel phlegm build in my mouth and throat. My temples pounded and my legs ached.  

Just below the lock, almost adjacent to the lock landing, there’s a scrubby patch of land that the village youths sometimes use as a meeting point and to while away miscreant hours, drinking cider and passing round shoplifted smokes. The ground is scattered with broken glass and the remnants of numerous small fires. However, on that morning, never, was I so glad to reach that dismal spot. Bent double, hands on my knees, I heaved in great gulps of air. A stitch scorching up my right side. What was more, I was greeted by the sound of voices. Real, human, living voices. Never before had I been so relieved, so delighted, to hear the sound of a human voice. The fog was still too dense to see the lock itself, but I could hear the water from the by-wash rushing over the little brick-built weir. Instantly, that paralysing sense of dread and panic fell from me. Normality. Even now, the horror of the past few minutes was beginning to settle into something like, if a little too earlier for an amusing anecdote, at least a curio to play with on the suggestibility of the mind. The capsizing boat was once more finding its even keel.

Although still refusing to give myself permission to look around, I do remember, the warm sweet wash of relief, the feeling one can get awaking after a bad dream. The thick fog tenaciously clung around the lock, but along with voices, I also became aware of the sounds of movement and activity, prosaic, familiar, the sounds of a lock being worked. I couldn’t catch any of the spoken words, but was aware of raised voices. The clang of a windless thrown onto brickwork. The sepulchral sound of water gushing into an empty lock chamber. The thick green smell of stirred water, wet wood, and trout.

I took a few more long gulps of air to regulate my breathing and calm myself down. To my left, at the canal’s edge, I came upon the first of the wooden bollards of the lock landing, wasp-waisted by their century or more of use. More indistinct shouting. The dark impressionistic smudge of a figure, like those you see looking down at you through the dripping condensation of the upstairs window of a double-decker bus. I was still unable to hear distinct words, but I was becoming aware of an anger, aggression. Whoever it was working this lock, were evidently not in agreement. I instinctively slowed down. More from that British reserve, instilled from childhood, of not wanting to get involved or to appear an intrusion on another person’s private business.

Fortunately, as I got nearer and the reassuring grey bulk of the lock began to loom through the mist, the shouting seemed to subside. I made up my mind to simply and as casually as I could make my way past without calling any undue attention to myself, to save face to both myself and the others there and hoping that Peg wouldn’t decide to go over and greet them, as she usually did, thereby forcing on both parties an awkward and contrived meeting. 

Keeping as close to the hedge line as possible, I quietly climbed the small incline alongside the bottom gate, expecting to see the white gush of water and cock’s-tail of spume.

Nothing. The lock was completely deserted. A baleful silence hung heavily over Morton’s Rise lock. I stood for a second in stunned disbelief. Unable to comprehend what my eyes and ears were telling me. Where had everyone gone? What was happening? As far as I could see through the mist ahead, no boat was waiting for the lock to fill and to enter. I could feel my throat constrict, I wanted to be sick, to burst into tears at the disorienting helplessness and total bewilderment that I felt. 

Just before Peg and I turned once more to run, I recall how the sun broke through a small clearing that bathed the dark hulk of The Dread, suspending it in cobweb hangings of mist and golden light. “At least,” I said to myself, “the lock will slow my followers down by at least five to ten minutes.” I apprehensively looked down the lock. The fog swirled. Nothing else could be seen. No upcoming boat. No hunched figure on the towpath. Nevertheless, I took no chances and started to sprint the final 300 yards to the turnover bridge, Peg racing ahead of me. I calculated that I should be well off the towpath before whatever it was behind me (if it was still there) could catch me up. Gradually, the welcoming homely humped shape of the bridge began to materialise through the dense curtain of fog. I slowed slightly as my feet and legs signalled the steep rise in the towpath.

Then, out of the corner of my eye I caught the unmistakable impression of the snub nose of a working boat, silently ploughing its way through the fog. It was practically on my shoulder, as if about to overtake me. The rope fender on the prow glistened in the mist. My stomach lurched and my blood froze. 

I dared not turn round.  

It was then that I felt the grip of an old, weather-hardened hand on my shoulder.  

SIGNING OFF 

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and wishing you a very restful and peaceful night. Sweet dreams! Good night.

WEATHER LOG