An Encounter at a Five-Barred Gate

 

Speaking to a neighbour recently, I mentioned the ghostly figure of a monk I’d seen crossing a road in the village when driving home at dusk some months ago.

“Oh,” she said, “we’ve all seen him – we think he’s a monk who taught at the local school and was buried near here.”

And this evening, I thought I saw him again as I headed towards my favourite contemplation spot – a five-barred gate overlooking a broad meadow and west towards the sun setting over the tree-lined river. Leaning on the gate, I looked to see if I could spot any deer or foxes on the jogging track mown around the meadow. As I prefer to be alone with my thoughts, I was perturbed to see someone, or something, across the other side of the meadow coming towards the gate. I couldn’t see clearly what it was because it was silhouetted by the setting sun. Two long ears waggled – could it be a donkey. I stepped to one side of the gate out of sight and looked through a straggly hedge to see what it was as it drew near.

It was a man, a monk of sorts judging by his habit, with a hare sitting bolt upright on one of his shoulders waggling its long ears. And as he came closer, I could see small birds fluttering around his head. And walking and scampering alongside him all sorts of shrews, mice, voles and also several weasels and stoats; a polecat, fox, badger and roe deer too. Then as he leaned on ‘my’ five barred gate, a buzzard floated down and perched there – followed by a crow and a red-kite. What an earth was I witnessing!

I was wondering what to do when the monkish man looked straight towards me in in my hiding place, and said: “Hello, come and join us.” I offered a weak “Hello” and approached. He and his wildlife gathered around him one side of the gate and me the other. As I still thought this might be some sort of apparition or trick, I didn’t offer my hand, and nor did he to me, but he spoke again: “You and many others like you have a passion for nature, and I sense and share your concerns about the natural world being impacted by the biodiversity and climate crises. I empathise with your struggles to find solutions, especially in the fens out there.”

I was bemused, how did this strange man know of my concerns? He paused as if sniffing the air and continued: “That rich, organic soil is oxygenated and wasted by drainage and intensive farming and releases as much carbon dioxide as the rest of the emissions from the whole of Cambridgeshire. These fens are pleasing in their own way – big skies – but not a patch on the landscapes where I come from – but attractive to you I believe. Aren’t you one of the group promoting a Fens Biosphere so your lovely fens are managed more sustainably?”

“Well, yes!” I responded, before he went on: “I visited the fens near what is now called Peterborough about three thousand years ago and stayed with the fen people in their round houses and went fishing with them in their log boats – the place absolutely teemed with fish and fowl. And even a couple of thousand years later, Hereward the Wake showed me the fens around Ely, and what a thrilling sight it still was then to my eyes as a lover of wild places and wildlife. But only a few hundred years later, I was there alongside one of your ancestors who was, under duress, digging a new waterway to drain the fens – what a disaster that was for those vast wetlands and those that previously lived in harmony with them.”

This was strange and perplexing, and as I sought to understand and frame a response, he continued: “The solution is quite simple, just get the drainage pumps turned off, that’ll save a lot of energy, and the fens will quickly revert to the magnificent, wildlife rich wetlands they once were.”

I found my voice: “Your solution would be a bit drastic, to say the least, what about the farming and all the people that now live in the flood plain of the fens.”

He replied: “Well, my saintly purpose is to champion ecosystem restoration. I leave it to others, like the groups to which you belong and those you try to influence, to find a sustainable environmental balance with the cultural, social and economic needs. So, my friend, get on with it and I wish you well and success.”

With this command and encouragement, the monk smiled and began to turn away. I found my voice again: “Are you an apparition? The former schoolteacher monk that we see around the village?”

He looked back at me, chuckled and said: “What, you mean Father Ambrose? No, he’s a real ghost in his own right!  I’m just Francis, Francis of Assisi”.

And with that response, his shape dissolved into the streams of orange light coming from the setting sun and all the animals with him dispersed into the meadow and woodland.

I made my way home with new resolutions triggered by this extraordinary encounter. Or was this just my fantastic imagination running away with me? Was it a dream? Had had I been talking to myself?

As I walked back to my house, I heard a laughing cackle, and there perched on the apex of the roof, illuminated by the last rays of the sun, was a sea-eagle – I’d never seen one near here before. It fixed me with one eye, nodded its head and I clearly heard it cackle: “Flood the Fens! Flood the Fens! Flood the Fens!”

At that moment, my neighbours’ black cat caught my attention by rubbing figures of eight around my legs. And when I looked up, the eagle had gone.  And when I looked down again the cat had run back to the lane and was there picked up by a man who gave me a friendly wave and walked on, whilst the cat, comfortably on his shoulder, reached out a paw to try and pat the man’s shining halo.  

Roger Mitchell

(This text formed part of The Fenscapers first public reading event on January 21st, 2022).