This started life as Guy haunting Nottingham Castle, but it sort of morphed...Thank you Jen darling xxxx

A Ghost Story 1.

He watched, he always watched. What else was there to do? These small people moved about so clumsily, stumbling between crisis and disaster, the two states only separated by periods of sleep or seemingly pointless activity. It was the only amusement to be had in the tedious hours he spent wandering the castle and town.
No, they called it a city now. It was no longer the walled, fortified town he had known. The buildings, fragile, like their occupants, had spread out and leeched into what had been green fields. The forest had gone, replaced by what they called motorways. He saw them as rivers of angry machines where all moved forward and back with pretended purpose.
It was the pretence that irritated him most. They pretended there was a point to what they did. All the storing up of useless objects, shuffling them from place to place, and all with such show of importance. He had looked over shoulders at lists carried and ticked off. Listened to intense conversations about orders, deliveries, and the failures of both. He had sat in alehouses as the same people discussed games and wagers. Loves won and lost, though they hardly seemed loves to him, so quickly were they replaced. The affections were so shallow that momentary separations seemed to actually cause new ardours to occur.
The churches were no different. Sin, it seemed, no longer existed. It had been replaced with mistakes; errors of judgement, unfortunate circumstances, or, worse still, the sinful act somehow became a virtue. If this were true, how was he still made to pay for sins that no longer appeared to be sins? Why was he to serve punishment for all his mistakes? It had enraged him at first, then as time went, it became anger, then annoyance. Now it was merely irritation.

There were things he understood to be improvements. Water was clean and in constant supply, but the people squandered it, as they squandered all else they had. Higher purpose did not seem to enter the lives of any he watched. All the years he had spent in his servitude to this place, he had noted only perhaps two or three instances of truly noble actions.
The first was by a soldier, at the time when the country had again split itself in two, populace against king. Intrigue and greed had paraded themselves as honesty and integrity once more, the guise of politics hiding the usual offences. The county had been for Parliament and the soldier wore a sash of sea green. He watched as the troops occupied the town. There had been only cheers from the people as the commanders took up residence in the best homes. The soldiery were billeted in wherever they could find shelter and comfort. But these men were different from those he had known. They did not dice or drink to excess, nor try to fornicate with any female available. These men sang psalms, shouted praises to God in the stead of crude oaths.
He listened to one particular man talk with his compatriots; the talk was of liberty, enfranchisement for all. He had scoffed at what the man said. That all were equal on this earth was clearly nonsensical. But he made them right when he thought of all the buffoons and greedy fools he had been forced to obey in his days of service.
There was innocence to the thoughts the men voiced, it made him long to join the debate. Perhaps it was not such nonsense. Perhaps they were right in other things too, that women Be man's helpmeet and boon companion, not his possession.

He remembered his own wife. She had been small, but as he minded, bonny. She died of the sweating sickness within the first year of their marriage. He mourned her loss; she had kept him warm and satisfied, even made him laugh. The daughter she had given him was too small to survive without her mother, and she died also. But the marriage portion had been a tidy manor, which he kept, and it soothed the loss.
But she had long ago gained Paradise with their child; he doubted they would meet again. There had been other women, other loves gained but not earned. Even an unrequited longing for a pure lass who would not have him. Again his sins were too great for her to forgive. She too died.

He stilled, it was growing light.