More Uncanny Stories

[allthingshorror]

C Arthur Pearson (1918)




CONTENTS

The Mailed Foot - Hermina Black and Edith Blair Staples
The Pipers of Mallory - Theo Douglas
Visiting Rounds - Michael Kent
The Jungle - Paul Eardley
The Haunted Chessmen - E.R. Punshon
The Eigth Lamp - Roy Vickers
Bill Dixon Stands By - J Chapman Andrews


Follow on to Uncanny Stories(1916), these tales were selected from The Novel Magazine. Was originally called 'The Lady's Magazine' - and from 1912 featured an uncanny tale slot until 1923 when they favoured romance shorts. Three hundred ninety three issues of The Lady's/ Novel Magazine were published from April 1905 until December of 1937.

[allthingshorror]

The Mailed Foot - Hermina Black and Edith Blair-Staples

All I can say is that this pair of ladies must have had an absolute ball while writing this bloody fabulous tale.

George is down and out in London, and is looking forward to spending his Christmas alone when he bumps into his old friend Owen Flaxham who he hadn't seen for a long time. They go off to Flaxham Hall, an Elizabethan pile apart from one part of the building that dates back to the 10th Century. Staying in Owens room the first night with his host as the room he is to stay in is occupied by an unseen and unheard of Mundy his sleep is peacefull.

The next day he moves to the single room in the old part of the house, with no electricity as of yet, George settles down after a nice day of shooting and partying and as he has half a whisky and takes off his watch, he realsies that the hands of the watch are pointing to 1am. Witching hour.

All of a sudden, he hears a heavy thudding coming down the deserted hallway and then a heavymetallic clang and George believes that someone has put on a suit of armour for a joke. George finds himself in the middle of the room without nowing how he got there, and then a mailed fist strikes the door, the candles go out and George is no longer alone...

After a very scary moment indeed where George feels that he might be killed, he is, to his great relief, left alone and the spooky footfalls thud away, not wanting to pursue that unknown horror.

The next day George, still shaken by his ordeal, is told that Godfrey, a racontuer cousin of Owen's is coming down, and seeing an oppourtunity, gives up his room so he can crash in with Owen again. Owen then tells him the story of The Mailed Foot - and of the ghost which stalks the house, waiting to kill anyone who has done any of the female members of the family wrong....

It just happens that Cousin Godfrey has a hold over Owens sister Cecily, and is wanting his wicked way with her. Will George realise in time and rescue Godfrey from a certain death? I think we both know the answer to that one...

It's a brilliant story, and one, if I was ever to do my own anthology of tales - would definately put in. Hats off to Black and Blair!

[dem bones]

There's a third collection, Ghost Stories And Other Queer Tales (Pearson, 1931) which features selections from both the Uncanny Tales books plus additional fiction from Novel. I'm not sure if anyone's used The Mailed Foot since, but both 'William Pattrick' and 'Richard Peyton' have re-run The Eighth Lamp in their ghost train collections and Hugh Lamb included Lewis Lister's Terror By Night from ... Queer Tales in Gaslit Nightmares 2

[allthingshorror]

The Pipers of Mallory - Theo Douglas (Mrs H.D. Everett)

Quite a touching story this one, and it made me suspect that it was written by a woman in the first place - one quick google search later and lo and behold, Theo Douglas is Mrs H.D. Everett - Wordsworth have a collection of hers called The Crimson Blind and Other Ghost Stories.

Pipers of Mallory concerns letters from the new Mrs Frazer to her friend Margaret. The lady in question talks about how she's fallen in love with a man called Jack, who's about to go off and fight in the First World War - so they get married and in the course of their shortened honeymoon, Jack says that his new wife has to go and live with his mother while he is in France fighting the Huns. Well! Our newly wedded protagonist isn't having that as she is wanting to help the war effort by working with her friend Violet in a London hospital, but she conceeds to stay with his mother for a short while before she starts work.

So parting from her new man, not knowing if she will see him again, and going to meet the mother-in-law (who is an invalid)that she has never met she jumps on the train that takes her to Edinburgh. She arrives and meets Peters - the mother's servant who treats her to a bit of breakfast in the nearest hotel. After she is suitably refreshed, they go to catch another train and on their way, she hears the skirl of the bagpipes which fires up her blood. She asks Peters if there is a piper at Mallory (the family home) and Peter says that there is not.

So they jump on the train, and it takes forever - denoting that they are going somewhere deep into the Scottish Higlands. On the other end, they finally arrive at Mallory, which is only a modest country house and not the fine mansion that Mrs Frazer had been thinking about. Going into the house the hallway is groaning under the skins, heads of beasts and weapons hanging from the walls - she is met my her mother in law, the Lady Heron, who welcomes her with open arms, but boy - she is one frail old bird.

Surprising to Mrs Frazer, they get along well - although still strangers. She amuses herself by going for country rambles, and on one of those sojourns she heres the faint skirl of the bagpipes echoing across the valley. Not just that, she's hearing it in her sleep.

Coming across an old man, she asks where the piping is coming from - and he says that they are coming from the ghosts of a clan who were slaughtered. And everytime a Frazer is to fall, the pipers play in Glen Fruin, where the slaughter had taken place.

Realsising that he might turn the woman into a paranoid wreck, he says that there are many Frazers at war and it might not be her husband that will bite the big one! She thinks about this a lot, and when she is sitting in the drawing room with Lady Heron, they both hear the skirl of the pipes - and the Lady has the common sense to pretend that it doesnt exist and shut the windows.

The next day they hear that the elderly and very ill John Frazer, the tenant of the Mill has died.

Then she leaves, goes to work in the hospital with her friend Violet and they share a flat together, but then Violet has a go at her for being friends with a man who she fancies and she leaves the flat. So all that Mrs Frazer can do as she doesn't want to go and live with her Aunt Winifred is to jump on the train to go and see Lady Heron.

They get along brilliantly now, but after a night or two, she hears the pipes playing again. And this time both her and Lady Heron hears it, and they think that Jack is a gonner. A telegram from the War Office drives the stake further. Wounded and Missing, Believed Killed.

Have the Pipers of Mallory got it right this time?

#

Quite a poignant tale, written as the war was still going on and had killed so many. Not an Uncanny story by any stretch of the imagination, but nicely written and a happy(?) ending.

[dem bones]

Apr 9, 2009 7:13:01 GMT @allthingshorror said:

Quite a touching story this one, and it made me suspect that it was written by a woman in the first place - one quick google search later and lo and behold, Theo Douglas is Mrs H.D. Everett - Wordsworth have a collection of hers called The Crimson Blind and Other Ghost Stories.

I'd love to know who recommended it as it's an inspired but far from obvious choice. The Death Mask & Other Ghosts (Philip Allen, 1920), from which the majority of the stories are taken, is a borderline Creep, just missing out due to its being published before the series began, although Birkin posthumously included the title story in the third book in the series, Shivers, (Philip Allen, 1933). Now that Wordsworth have spoilt us rotten with re-issues of long-sought titles, i feel i can come over all churlish and admit a slight disappointment that The Crimson Blind lacks an introduction, but it more than makes up for this with the three bonus stories, one of which is The Pipers of Mallory. Will give the book a thread to itself when i've more time.

[allthingshorror]

Visiting Rounds - Michael Kent

Can't find anything on this author - so it's straight into the story.

Raymond Holt is a great actor of the stage and believes that his talents are more suited to treading the boards than the mud of the trenches. He signs up nevertheless and swaps his fine clothing for heavy boots and scratchy clothes. He doesn't like it, and when the offer of Lieutenant opens up, he takes it and becomes second in command of the Recorder, and goes up and down an unrevealed stretch of river with the one-eyed Commander Ballantyne who has decided that the best way to deal with Raymond is to rag him silly.

Raymond and Ballantyne exchange tit for tat, with Ballantyne calling Holt a slacker, and with Raymond agreeing. The Commander correctly guesses that Holt is wishing that he was on the front pages of the newspapers, responsible for taking down a Zeppylin and when Holt lights up at this, Ballantyne says that he doesn't have the nerve for it, and a gentlemans bet is formed where Ballantyne will trade his fountain pen for Holts motorcycle if the latter can bring down the one of those feared airships.

Holt agrees and buggers of to Salisbury Plain, where he makes quite a good airman.

Then one night - the Zepp season has arrived and The Recorder is on the river and they see a Zepp, and they shine their lights on it and there is an almighty fight in the air, with planes swooping down on it and the Zepp is torn to ribbons. (I think - the writing is rather poor here and its very allegorical with Davids and Goliaths etc..)

Ten minutes after the fall of the Zepp, someone comes onto the recorder to see Ballantyne. It's Holt, and he can't come to see Ballantyne in the morning. He just can't. Is he there to give his motorcycle, or claim the fountain pen? And why won't Ballantyne say anything about Holt's visit afterwards?

#

This story falls down due to my ignorance at not knowing the terms/lingo that was used during those days. The pay-off is obvious, but again, it's just more sad than spooky.