From Chapter 5 of “Dark Angel”
Martha is terrified when a creature referred
to as The Nightwalker makes frequent mysterious visits to the
area around her home. It appears to be stalking her. She has
no idea whether the creature is a ghost, or a man, or a demon……….
Yesterday, shortly after ten of the clock
on a breezy spring morning, I was on my way to Llannerch. I
followed the lane to the Dolrannogs and Penrhiw, but I was in
no state to admire the brash golden daffodils and cool yellow
primroses that still lined the hedgerows, for I had too much
on my mind. I rounded a little bend in the lane, and almost
walked straight into the Nightwalker. The creature was standing
in the lane, facing me and no more than twenty paces in front
of me. I stopped dead in my tracks, overwhelmed by terror. I
was so frightened that my recollections of its appearance are
sketchy to say the least, but I think that it looked the same
as ever, with a tall black wide-brimmed hat on its head, a black
muffler around its face, and its whole body swathed in a capacious
black cloak. Although I was so close to the figure, I do not
recall that I saw its eyes. Perhaps, as a phantom or a demon,
it has no eyes, no face, and no body?
For a moment the creature and I stood facing one another. I
think I was too terrified to turn and run. Then, with infinite
slowness and menace, it started to move towards me, and my fear
rose to such a peak that I think I must have fainted. At any
rate, some minutes or hours later I regained consciousness and
found myself lying in the middle of the filthy track with my
bonnet on the ground beside me, mud all over my cloak and dress,
and bruises on my elbow and on the back of my head. Next to
me, on the ground, there was a small bunch of freshly picked
daffodils. What an extraordinary thing! There was no sign of
the Nightwalker.
I picked myself up, checked that I was not bleeding from my
injuries, and brushed the mud off my clothes as best I could.
What should I do now? I felt giddy, and I was still in a state
of panic as recollections of the encounter with the creature
in black came flooding into my mind. I could have turned and
run home, since I was no more than four hundred yards from my
front door, but I thought better of it. I could not spend my
life fleeing from phantoms, and I had a mission to complete.
So I gathered up my skirts, looked about me to make sure that
the creature really had disappeared, and hurried on towards
Llannerch. Thomas Tucker was in the yard at Penrhiw, and I waved
at him as I went past. I have to say that my mind was in a very
unsettled state, for every rustle of the budding branches on
the hedgerow trees, every black shadow, every scudding cloud
that blotted out the sun appeared to be filled with menace.
But then I realized that the birds were still singing, that
new lambs were frolicking in the fields, and that the spring
sun was now high enough in the sky to banish the cold and damp
of winter. And I was strangely reassured by the thought of the
daffodils lying in the muddy lane when I had recovered from
my faint. Were they real daffodils, or flowers from the phantom
world? I reprimanded myself for not checking.
