My Aunt Nancy worked as a nurse at Stratheden Hospital during World War Two. The work was hard and the hours were long, but she was young, single and attractive and, like her friends, usually had enough energy for a dance or party on her day off.
One Friday night Nancy went to a dance in the village with her then boyfriend. They quarrelled and she stormed out of the dance and set out to walk home.
The moon cast enough light to see by and she decided to take the shortcut down Hangman's Lane to reach the main road to Cupar. As she walked along, her temper subsided and she began to notice the landscape around her. Trees cast long-fingered shadows across the road. Dry leaves rattled in the breeze. An owl hooted then floated out in front of her like a ghostly shadow.
Nancy began to wish that she hadn't flounced out of the dance alone. A cow coughed behind the hedge and, suddenly panicked, Nancy started to run, stumbling on the uneven ground.
A cloud blew across the moon and suddenly the world was plunged into darkness. A rabbit screamed somewhere close by and Nancy's nerve broke. She ran twice as fast as before until speed made her careless and she caught her foot and fell forward.
Thoroughly un-nerved and in pain from a twisted ankle, Nancy cast blindly around for something to help her stand. Her left hand made connection with a tree trunk. Touching something as reassuringly solid as the rough bark calmed her a little. She dragged herself on to her knees and used the tree for support while she got to her feet and tried to catch her breath.
The leaves above her head rustled. There was a noise like branches rubbing together and as Nancy stood listening the noise intensified and its rhythm increased. She tried to think rationally. The wind. The wind must be getting stronger. Then she realised that the wind had dropped. What was moving the leaves and the branches?
Panicked again, she stepped forward blindly with her hands outstretched. Her fingers touched something that felt like fabric. Something was dangling from the tree; something that smelled of mould and rotting leaves. The moon slipped out from behind the cloud and she could see.
Yes she could see, but she could never bring herself to describe the horror of the figure that dangled from the tree limb. She screamed in fear and fainted dead away. Her friends found her lying under the Gallows Tree speechless with fright when they returned from the dance.
I never could persuade Nancy to show me which tree was the Gallows Tree. She refused to walk down Hangman's Lane for the rest of her life, even in daylight.
I know exactly where the tree was. At the hospital end the lane on the east side. An old ash tree, not a gallows tree as such , local hangings took place in the Fluthers Park, but the site of a murder and subsequent suicide of the murderer. A site used by Tinkers marked by Willows used to make tent frames. Until the Sixties a rope hung on the supposed branch .
ReplyDeleteI often walked this road at dusk after being dropped off at the end of the road. A long walk back to the nurses home. Passed that very tree. 1980 - 1981. Lots of people I nursed had been on the long stay wards for most of their lives. The hospital was their home. Carole Doherty (Hampton)
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