I told this story to Maria recently, and she was shocked I had not told her before. But she persuaded me to share it. It is a true story and it happened in 2003, and involved me and Rose. And one other.

About a half mile into our woods, off the path, there are the crumbling stone foundations of an old farmhouse, long abandoned, but almost surely a farm belong to the Scotch-Irish settlers who came here before the Revolutionary War. I walk by it almost every day, and have walked around in it. I have an old inkwell and pot from that house and I notice that the dogs always give it a wide berth.

One evening, a few months after I came to Bedlam Farm with Rose, we were walking along the path. It was just before dark and misty, and I remember hearing the owls and crickets firing up in the woods. We were on the way back, and Rose suddenly stiffened and growled, lowering her ears and looking ahead. I was surprised – a bit unnerved also – to see a tall, thin figure come down the path towards us. The man was very tall lean, lanky and was wearing a slouch hat and a brown cotton shirt and leggings. He had a carved wooden walking stick, and he  wore brown and muddy leather boots and I could see right away that his clothes were torn, covered in dirt. Rose’s mane went up, and so did the hair on my neck. There was no one that I knew who would be walking down my path as night fell and striking purposefully towards me.

As he moved closer, I stopped, and for a moment, I thought I saw the big red barn right through him, as if he were transparent, or so think that he was almost porous. Rose whined, whimpered, and backed away, the first and only time I ever saw her do that. I looked around for a stick to grab, and reached for my cell phone, which I realized I had not brought. I was new to the farm and not yet at ease there and I thought I ought to follow Rose and climb up the dirt mound next to the path and run for the farmhouse or the road. There was no one to call, no one to hear me. Perhaps so thin a man was not strong.

Then I took a breath and gathered  myself. I was not going to run on my own path, my own farm. I was just skittish. The man strode quickly towards me, as if I were not there, and about 50 feet away of me, he simply vanished. He was not there. I rubbed my eyes and looked around and was reassured to see Rose growling and looking along the path, sniffing the ground. She was spooked. So was I.

I never saw the man again. But when I walk past the foundations along the path, I always say “hey.”