It was Christmas Eve, and my wife was busy in the kitchen preparing for a large influx of family. I was supposed to be keeping the children occupied. This mainly involved suggesting that they may want to play in their rooms while I watched television. But our oldest son—although not very old—was a non-conformist and he would not stop pestering my wife for food and information about what was under the Christmas tree.
“OK, lad, I am going to take you up the mountain. Want to come?!”
Our son was always keen on physical exercise; he echoed my “up the mountain” with pleasure and his coat and scarf were on before I had left my seat.
The ‘mountain’ was, in fact, not a mountain. It was Arthur’s Seat and our house in the university halls of residence where we lived was in its shadow. Arthur’s seat is the edge of a massive volcano that erupted, where Edinburgh is now located, in the Carboniferous era. It is about 800 feet high and has several approaches. The view in one direction from the top across Edinburgh to Blackford Hill—another aspect of the rim of the volcano nearly three miles away—is excellent. In the other direction the Firth of Forth opens out into the North Sea.
Both suitably wrapped up we decided to take the path nearest the back gate of the halls up to the top. The path is narrow and in places the sides are steep. But our son, as ever, was fearless and ran on ahead of me. The day was dull and overcast and the nearer we got to the top the colder it became. A single low shaft of sunlight was dancing over the Firth of Forth but otherwise, night was beginning to fall.
“We had better just go to the top and come straight down” I said. It would not be easy to negotiate the path in the dark.
The rocky summit was in sight, but the path at this point disappears from view for the final hundred yards to the top. Out of the gloom and old man appeared coming down the path. He had clearly either been ahead of us but unseen or, as I thought more likely, had probably taken the path from the other side of Arthur’s Seat and was making his was down our side. Wearing a black duffel coat and a black woollen hat it was apparent that he had fairly unkempt white hair protruding from under the hat and also a white beard, similarly in need of a trim.
“Hello” he bellowed, “Lovely evening. I was just taking a look at the city. Lovely view.”
I said that was just taking our son out for a while to give his mother some peace while she prepared for Christmas. He smiled at our son.
“Well, Happy Christmas” he bellowed again and carried on down the path.
The opportunity was too good to miss, and I told my son that we had just seen Santa Claus and that he must have been having a look to see how he would deliver his presents that night.
“Really!” he shouted. “Wow, wait till I tell Mum.”
We walked on for a few steps to where the path disappeared before the summit. This was the last point from which the path was visible all the way to the road. We both turned round, expecting to see the old man making his way down.
But he was gone.
