A College Mystery

'Peter - this is a rather sad mystery, but it is about Christ's...'

So reads the scrawled note in the front of the leather-bound copy of 'A College Mystery' that arrived in the post for me at work last week. The 'mystery', by A.P. Barker, was sent to me by an alumnus of the College I work for in Cambridge, Christ's, because he thought some of the fellows might be interested. Preoccupied by ghosts as I am, I've intercepted it before they could get a look in!

The tale concerns an apparition in the Fellows' Garden, where I've often sat to read at lunchtime, or stood beneath the famous Milton Mulberry tree (fancifully claimed to be the spot where he wrote 'Paradise Lost'). Apparently, a number of former students of Christ's with rooms overlooking the gardens have 'observed the figure of a man emerge on the lawn under the great chestnuts, on the left, and walk slowly and deliberately, with bent head, as far as the great yew and the weeping ash. There he invariably stopped suddenly and turned towards the may tree, and then faced the garden again, on the right, and either disappeared by the green beech, or came out on the lawn past the great copper beech, skirted the border of that bed, and then faded from view by an old elm near where the sun dial now stands. They described the figure of that of a tall, heavy, elderly man, dressed in black, with a swallow-tailed coat and high collar and stock. He sometimes raised his face; but the sudden halt at the great yew was invariable.'

Imagine my mounting sense of foreboding when the ghost in question turned out to come from Derbyshire! One of the sections in 'A Pint For The Ghost' deals with unfinished business, and the business that preoccupies this particular spirit is a terrible crime that he committed for love, a sense of guilt he needs to assuage... It was a great read, though I spoke to a historian at the College who takes a dim view of the saga.

The tale ends with a rather profound reflection on the nature of guilt and absolution:

'Is it that, in the regions of spirit, intention, or even desire, brings the same responsibility as accomplished fact?'