The Horse – a Ghost Story? by David Roache
The following is absolutely true, though I can scarcely believe it myself. It was the year of our Lord 1643, hardly a month after Michaelmas, and I, Jeb Middleton, was walking back to my home in Temple Tysoe from my work at Edgehill Quarry. It was a moonless night, cold and damp, a damp that creeps up your tired legs and seeps into your core. My route home follows the track along the top of the escarpment and down by Old Lodge to the small settlement where I lived with my mother. My terrier, Jack, as always was by my side. I knew the route well, which was fortunate as the night was so dark I could hardly make out the muddy track fiive paces before me.
I had just crossed over the cart-track to Banbury when I fiirst became aware of the smell. The tinkers had moved on at the end of the summer, so I knew it wasn’t the smell of their fiire, but it was unmistakeable, the smell of a campfiire. I thought little more about it until, a few yards further on, Jack started to whimper crouching down and looking around. At fiirst I thought it was old Reynard out on his night patrol but there was no smell of fox in the air. Jack would not budge; he was fast to the ground and scared. It was then that I heard the fiirst feint sounds coming from down in the valley. A clanking, banging sound rising up in the dark, so indistinct at fiirst it was difficult to make out what it could be. Then the distant sound of people shouting, crying out and screaming. This was not just a few people making merry, it was the sound of a horde ……. but it couldn’t be, not here on the hill at close to midnight.
By now I was almost as nervous as Jack. Should I stop and hide lest this was trouble, or should I persuade my tired legs to run down the hill towards home? I stopped, heart in mouth as the sounds from the valley got ever louder. Suddenly there was an almighty crash and boom………gunfiire! The blast of cannon and musket was drowning out the sound of the people, yet there was still no sign of what was making this cacophony. The smell of the campfiire was now being overwhelmed by the smell of gunpowder and the cries and screams were now so near that I feared I would stumble upon whatever was causing them. Surely, I would see, at any moment, what was happening. But no. Even while the sounds and smell were getting ever more present no sight of it was to be had, just the mist rising from the valley swirling around my feet.
I determined that I was only a few strides from the Old Lodge track that would lead me down the face of the hill to the safety of home, that was my route away from this terrible mystery. I called Jack, who was reluctant to move, dragging him we set off towards what I hoped would be the safety of my own hearth. But, rising above the other sounds there was now the beat of hooves, at a gallop, following me along the path. Pulling Jack off the track, we crouched behind a fallen trunk, too scared even to look to see who could be riding at such pace in the pitch dark. Out of the gloom came the terrible sight of a large bay riderless horse at full-tilt, bridle fllying behind it, still saddled and with foam coming from its gaping mouth and nostrils and streaked with blood. The terrifiied animal crashed past us an arm’s length from our refuge and disappeared into the dark.It must have been several minutes before Jack and I had the nerve to move from our hiding place. It was only then that I realised that silence had returned to the night. The only sounds being those of an owl and the occasional scream of a fox. The smells too had vanished.
Had I imagined all that had appeared to have happened? As I trudged down the track to home, I had time to think. The sounds and smells were so real, the cries of unseen men, so real. I couldn’t have imagined them. I knew, equally, I couldn’t have imagined the site of the bay charger crashing along the path. Jack had seen it too, if only he could assure me. Sleep came only fiitfully that night and dawn broke with a cold mist over the fiields. The damp was cruel as I set off back up the hill with an uncomfortable feeling of unease. What had caused the terrible apparition the previous evening? I had almost dismissed my misgivings as I was approaching the Banbury cart-track with a weak sun just rising over the brow of the hill.
As I came out of the trees on to the open ground I stopped, unable to move, in shock. There, scorched into the still smouldering turf, was the image of a vast, galloping horse………..the horse? With trepidation I moved forward to touch the ground where the image had been made. It was still warm. The eye, for this was a life-like image, seemed to glow in the morning sun. I could barely believe what I was looking at. This could not have been made by any hand of man. I could spend no longer wondering about the mysterious image, work and my paymaster, John Ashby, beckoned.
It was only later, when I fiirst divulged my story to Jeremiah, my closest friend, that he reminded me of the great battle that had raged only a year ago on the plain below the hill. Many had perished that day as King and Parliamentarians met to do battle. Is that what I had witnessed? Is that where my terrifiied, riderless horse had escaped from?