Mary Danby - Armada Ghost 3

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Mary Danby [ed.] Armada Ghost 3 (1970)

Mary Danby - Introduction

Sydney J. Bounds - House of Fear
Ruth Manning-Sanders - The Headless Horseman
M. R. James - There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
Sorche Nic Leodhas - The House That Lacked a Bogle
Flavia Richardson [Christine Campbell Thomson]- Out of the Earth
Henry Cecil - Proof
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Brownie
E. F. Bozman - The Red Cane
Ruth Manning-Sanders - The Skull
Pamela Hansford-Johnson - Ghost of Honour
Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Young Irish Lad from the Hiring Fair
Mary Danby - The Rocking-Horse Room

Blurb:

Interior artwork by Peter Archer

Twelve strange and spooky tales specially chosen to make your teeth chatter and your hair stand on end!

Come into the HOUSE OF FEAR, where uncanny noises echo in the night, ride with THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN and shiver at the horror that comes OUT OF THE EARTH. Laugh at THE HOUSE THAT LACKED A BOGLE and tremble at the mystery of THE RED CANE ...

A dozen weird stories - full of creepy fun!

Mary Danby's first entry in series includes contributions from Vault legends SJB, RCH, CCT, MRJ and editor herself. Even so, it still strikes me as one of the weaker volumes.

Sydney J. Bounds - House of Fear: Ten-year-old Bobby Weir unwisely accepts challenge to spend an hour in the local haunted house after dark. At least he'll not be alone ... Later revived in The Bumper Book of Ghost Stories, as is:

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Brownie: Sinclair Abbey is haunted by dimwitted ghost of a medieval monk. After twenty pages of nothing much, Miss Rose Fortesque, tutor, puts 'Brownie' and reader out of our mutual misery.

Ernest Franklin Bozman - The Red Cane: (Kathleen Lines [ed.], The House of the Nightmare & Other Eerie Tales, 1967). He sets out on a misty December evening to visit Kate, the kindly landlady he's not seen in thirty years. A friendly old woman keeps him company on a trek over the hill.

Henry Cecil - Proof: (Portrait of a Judge, 1964: Kathleen Lines [ed.], The House of the Nightmare & Other Eerie Tales, 1967). A detective's disastrous pursuit of a murderer up a treacherous mountain. As told to a gathering in a Lakeland hotel, one of whom, an insufferably pompous lawyer demands to know how comes the narrator knows so much about it?

Ruth Manning-Sanders - The Skull: (A Book of Ghosts and Goblins, 1968). Supernatural fairy tale of a little orphan girl runs away from her nasty guardian. Eventually she arrives at a haunted castle in the woods where she beds down for the night with a talking skull. All very cosy until the headless skeleton creeps from the fireplace to attack at midnight.

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Ruth Manning-Sanders - The Headless Horseman: (A Book of Ghosts & Goblins, 1968). Fearless Charlie Dodd is riding the moors on faithful old nag Polly when they encounter two horses - one headless, one bodiless - by the graveyard. The more substantial of this macabre pair is ridden by a phantom in a red coat carrying his own head beneath an arm. What else for it, but to challenge him to a race?

M. R. James - There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard: (Snapdragon, Eton, 6 Dec. 1924). MRJ supplies thrilling conclusion to interrupted story of Prince Mamillius to doting Court Ladies in The Winter’s Tale. Features John Poole - widower, curtain-twitcher, reputed miser, secret grave-looter, etc. - and the vengeful ghost of Old Mother Wilkins.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The House That Lacked a Bogle: (Gaelic Ghosts: Tales of the Supernatural from Scotland, 1964). It rankles with the new arrivals that every other house in St. Andrews boasts at least one resident ghost. Why should theirs be snubbed? Finally out of sheer desperation, young Tammer invites home a lonesome phantom piper from the kirkyard.

Pamela Hansford Johnson - Ghost of Honour: (Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries, 1936). “Until the fall of this house I will walk within it, and when the last brick crumbles to dust I will walk the site of it. Only one grain of mercy will I leave with you: never shall living soul behold my face.”

Such was the dying speech of Jeremiah ‘Beefy’ Dunbow, as he choked on a fish bone fed him by his wife and fellow stage performer, and three hundred years later, he’s sticking to his guns. The St. Pancras family are fond of their ghost who daily bangs out a mean tune on the organ, but Mr. Robertson, their guest for the night, is far from amused. When Jeremiah visits him in his room after dark, Robertson even accuses the ghost of reneging on his word.

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Flavia Richardson - Out of the Earth: (Weird Tales, April 1927). Anthony and Sylvia Wayre buy 'Romans,' a small hilltop cottage on the outskirts of a small Gloucestershire market town. Hardly have the couple moved in than their home comes under attack from a monstrous elemental formed out of a foul-reeking green gas. After Anthony fends off this bestial being with a crucifix, they learn from a local historian that the cottage is built on the site of a Roman settlement, and it is probably in their best interest to move.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Young Irish Lad from the Hiring Fair: (Ghosts Go Haunting, 1965). A wife-beating Highland farmer exploits a game Galway lad, working him around the clock only to withhold his wages "as is my right by law." When, inevitably, the boy "dies" from a mixture of exhaustion, undernourishment and homesickness, his ghost returns to torment the slave-driving penny-pincher over a period of months. He achieves this by persistently whistling signature tune, the Londonderry Air. Eventually tiring of this, the phantom next demands the lad's wages be paid up in full. The farmer is so terrified as to comply, sell up the farm, and devote his days to the drink. The 'ghost' is later spotted running his own farm back home. And who's that pretty, happy gal with him? Very cute.

Mary Danby - The Rocking-Horse Room: While Mum recuperates from illness, Marion is packed off to spend the holiday with Gran at River House, a vast Georgian property in Windsor. Exploring the attic rooms, Marion finds an antique rocking-horse and can't resist a ride. The harder she does, the more she's transported back in time until she's sharing the room with the ghosts of two stage Victorian children (the one all ringlets and pink nightie, the other a fledgling psycho in a sailor suit who recites "Tell tale tit, your tongue shall be slit, and all the dogs in town shall have a little bit."), their Governess, and a doll. And a fireplace.

A fair gentle ghost story with enough nasty episodes of bullying to suggest author may just as easily have developed it as one of her excellent adult horrors.