Dark Encounters: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1963) by William Croft Dickinson

"We regret our temerity 

     afterwards."

Readers who are unfamiliar with the collection may prefer to read these notes only after reading the stories. 

Dark Encounters: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1963) by William Croft Dickinson is a collection of modest supernatural short stories. Experiencers of the eerie in Dickinson are scholars and intellectuals who take the long view: for them the window of historical interest and curiosity closes sometime in the fifteenth century. Yet in their everyday work as field archeologists or paleographers, they must all contend with a past that rises up, often as a product of their own quite harmless actions, curiosity, omissions, or missteps. 

And really, that kind of thing can happen to anyone.

This peripatetic motion in story plots is reminiscent of the M. R. James method, but few Dickinson protagonists are as unfortunate.

*   *   *

Introduction by Alistair Kerr

Keir does a brief, thorough job of recapping Dickson's life and career.

[....]in his view ghost stories, legends and superstitions were of legitimate interest to historians, forming part of the historical narrative and providing insights into the popular culture of the period. His interest in ghost stories was stimulated by the folk legends that he unearthed in the course of his researches and travels around Scotland. Dickinson's opinion shows how authentically Scots he had become: Scots, like other Celts, tend to treat the paranormal or supernatural as part of the natural order of things. Belief in such phenomena as the second sight is not confined to poorly educated people living in remote rural areas; it seems still to be widespread.

[....]it is not surprising that there should be an ancient and respectable tradition of composing ghost stories in Scotland. It goes back to pre-literate days, when a brilliant storyteller, especially if he were also a poet or minstrel, was equally welcome in the peasant's hut or the nobleman's castle. That tradition survived well within living memory: for example, it was common for older family members to tell ghost stories, or recite ghostly poems, to their children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces around the fire at Christmas and on other winter nights, to give them a pleasurable fright. Even after most of the population had become literate, this custom continued; as recently as the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many published ghost stories were clearly intended to be read aloud, especially at Christmas.

[....] Because of this rich tradition, many of Scotland's finest authors have tried their hand at writing ghost stories. Two of the most spine- chilling ones ever written, The Tapestried Chamber and Wandering Willie's Tale, came from the pen of no less a wordsmith than Sir Walter Scott. Others who have done so include Robert Burns, as author of Tam O'Shanter; James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd); Mrs Margaret Oliphant, author of The Open Door and other stories; Robert Louis Stevenson; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (born in Edinburgh and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, albeit of Irish descent); John Buchan, George Mackay Brown and, unexpectedly, Muriel Spark.

[....] There are important differences between James's and Dickinson's work. They belonged to different generations, having been born thirty-five years apart. A vast gulf of experience separated them because Dickinson served in the Great War and James, who was fifty-two in 1914, did not. James's historical consciousness stopped at the latest in about 1910. Although he lived until 1936 and even after 1918 he continued to improve and edit his stories for republication; occasionally writing, or starting to write, new ones, James took no account of the changes that had happened in England since August 1914. Some of his stories take place as long ago as the seventeenth or eighteenth, but for the most part they happen in the later nineteenth or early twentieth, centuries. England is seated amid honour and plenty; still the richest country on Earth. The country houses are intact; their old families still usually live in them, although nouveaux riches occasionally rent or acquire them. Following some alarming psychic disturbance, they sometimes end by wishing that they had not. Dons and clergymen occupy an honoured position in society. The strong pound Sterling gives gentlemen antiquaries a favourable exchange rate, allowing them to travel at leisure and in comfort around an unspoiled Europe, where their researches, begun in all innocence, are apt to place them in danger. Trains are frequent and reliable; characters living in the depths of the country can easily 'run up to London' for a day in order to consult a book in a library, visit the British Museum or talk to an expert. France, Germany and the Low Countries are easily accessible; Scandinavia and other regions seem remote.

[....]only a few of Dickinson's stories take place earlier than the Second World War, although they often have echoes from an earlier period, which can suddenly come back to life and may prove lethal. The main action normally happens in the 1940s, 1950s or the very early 1960s. Dickinson's characters tend to have served in one or both World Wars. Academics now live frugally and pass their holidays playing golf , hill-walking or on archaeological digs in Scotland....

*   *   *

The Keepers of the Wall (1963) 

[....]he told me a strange tale that, away back in the past, when there was a long-standing feud between the MacLeods and the MacDonalds of Clanranald, the MacDonalds had seized a birlinn, manned by MacLeods, and had brought the boat and their prisoners to Dunross. It was a time when MacDonald himself was rebuilding one of the sea-walls of his castle. So what did MacDonald do? Some of the MacLeods were just thrown into the dungeons, and left to starve there till they died; but six of them, fine strong fellows, were buried at the foot of MacDonald's new wall so that their ghosts would hold it secure. And that, I was told, was the one sea-wall which still stood, with never a stone that had fallen from it. Had I not seen it for myself? The other walls were ruined and tumbled down. But the ghosts of the six MacLeods would always hold that one sea-wall secure and strong.

     'Well, that may be so,' I answered, when he had finished. 'But I still don't see why it should be dangerous to go to Dunross by night. As long as those ghosts are holding up the wall it can hardly fall down on me.'

     'May be so!' he repeated, his eyes flashing. 'I tell you, man, it is so. No one has gone to Dunross by night and returned again. The MacLeods are wearying of their work and aye seeking others to share with them the burden of the wall.'

     'And so evening visitors have been compelled to stay on,' I rejoined. And probably there was a little banter in my tone.

     'I have told you the tale of it,' he replied, with Highland dignity. 'My father knew it, and his father before him. And, for a truth, they told me of two men who did not return. One, I mind, was a shepherd, seeking a ewe that had strayed; the other was a young man like yourself, who had come from the south and who would not be believing in ghosts and in walls that could shut a man in.'

*   *   *

Return at Dusk (1953) 

Drummond tells a gathering of colleagues in the Common Room the reason he now avoids 'looking into a mirror at twilight.'

During the war, he was commanding officer of a unit headquartered in a Scottish castle.

[....] Returning to Cairntoul, in the gathering twilight, I passed a few words with the others, who were busy in the Hall, before climbing the further flight of stairs to my Turret Room. I was still in a happy mood of complete content, and, once in my room, I sat down on a chair, letting my mind absorb the quietness which seemed to be all around, bringing with it an air of peace so different from the work which we had just been doing and had still to do.

     I had sat down on the chair in front of the table which served as a dressing-chest and over which an old mirror was hanging on the wall. Behind me was the door leading to the beacon-turret. Now what made me look up into the mirror, I cannot say. But look up I did, and, as I looked into the mirror, I saw that the door to the turret was slowly opening. I watched that opening door like one fascinated, and, somehow, I could neither move nor cry out. Slowly the opening grew wider and wider. Then a face appeared, peering round the side of the door. In the mirror, the face seemed to look straight into mine, but in the twilight I could recognize no features — just the blur of a face, that, and no more. Then the face withdrew, and the door began to close again, as slowly and as quietly as it had opened. It shut (though I could swear I heard no click of the latch), and, as soon as it had shut, the sense of powerlessness immediately left me. I felt suddenly and strangely released and, jumping up, I rushed towards the door. But, half-way, I stopped. Surely I had imagined it all....

Drummond is not the only staffer who has an encounter, and he does not suffer the most violent treatment from the specter. Blood will out.

*   *   *

The Eve of St. Botulph (1953) 

Our narrator, an academic, learns one day 'for the first time, that there had been a Chronicle of Dundrennan; more than that, I was destined to learn not only of its discovery, but also of its subsequent mysterious loss.''

[....] on opening the manuscript of the Chronicle, I noticed on one of the early folios (the twenty-first folio, verso, to be exact) something that I had previously overlooked. There, following an account of affairs in Galloway, I noticed for the first time that the immediately following four lines had been expunged and, in their place, had been inserted a brief list of the reigns of the Scottish Kings from Malcolm II to Alexander II. Before, I had paid no attention to that uninteresting list of kings; in fact, I had skipped it. But now, noticing for the first time that it had been overwritten, I was naturally curious to know what had been so carefully expunged. Try as I would, however, the most I could make of the original entry ran, in translation: 

on the eve of St Botulph ..................... 

.................. a lay-brother ……………

saw ………. the north ……… abbot ............ devil ............... prayers

The narrator goes through the remainder of the chronicle. He finds many other poorly disguised passages that tell of a very strange series of events.

*   *   *

Can These Stones Speak? (1963) 

The beginnings of many of Dickinson's stories are so charming, I am not resentful or impatient when gooseflesh is not later produced.

[....] the talk had turned to the interesting subject of coincidence.

     'In my own case,' said Robertson, taking up the talk, 'the queerest coincidence I can remember came with a telephone call. I had left the Mathematical Institute fairly early, intending to come here to read the papers before lunch. By pure chance I had turned eastwards in Chambers Street, so that my way took me by the more roundabout route over the North Bridge and along Princes Street, and there, again by pure chance, I suddenly decided to drop into Purves's to buy myself a new pipe.

     Almost as soon as I had entered the shop, however, one of the assistants came up to me to say that I was wanted on the telephone. Now that, you'll admit, was strange; for no one knew of my sudden impulse to buy a pipe. How then could I be wanted on the telephone?

     'Well, to be brief, I went to the telephone at the back of the shop, only to find that the call was for me and (and here is the queerest part of it all) the call had come through to Purves's, instead of to the Mathematical Institute, by some strange failure in the working of the automatic exchange.'

     Robertson paused impressively. 'And I should say,' he continued, even more impressively, 'that in Edinburgh the mathematical chances of being given a wrong number by an automatic exchange, and a particular wrong number, just at the time when a particular individual is present to answer the call at that particular wrong number, must be, let me see . . .'

     'Yes, yes,' put in several of us at once, for Robertson's informal lectures on the theory of probability were well known. 'An extraordinary coincidence! The chances against it happening must be enormous.'

     'And yet,' came the quiet voice of Henderson, our mediæval historian, 'I can tell you of an even stranger coincidence — if that is the right word — and one also connected with a call on the telephone, but one which I think even Robertson will admit is beyond all reckoning.'

*   *   *

The Work of Evil (1963)

The splendors and miseries of academic librarianship.

[....] Opening a door marked 'Staff Only', Allan led the way through a maze of book-lined passages until at last, passing a heavy steel door, we stopped before an inner iron grille. This he unlocked and, stepping aside, he ushered me into the room.

     I glanced around with curiosity; but he gave me time for no more than a quick glance.

     'There they are,' he said, pointing to one of the stacks. 'An extraordinary collection. A frightening collection. The Lucretia and Eurialus which you want happens to be in it, but it's very much of a stranger there. For the rest, I hate them,' and his voice rose nervously as if in emphasis.

     I walked over to the stack, but I noticed he did not accompany me. There, as I saw two long rows of beautiful bindings, I murmured something of my appreciation and delight, Reverently taking down one volume after another, I examined the bindings more closely. All were of rich leather elaborately tooled in a variety of intricate patterns in which whorls and strange cabalistic signs predominated. I also turned to the title-pages: every work was either an incunabulum or of a date early in the sixteenth century. But every work was on the same theme. I ran my eye along the shelves, picking out the volumes which bore titles on their spines. Still the same theme.

     'Why!' I exclaimed, turning towards him; 'they are all on black magic and necromancy. What you might call a collection of evil; or at any rate a collection of evil intent. Who on earth gathered together all this devilry? It looks as though someone was striving hard to find something which at last would work.'

*   *   *

The Return of the Native (1963)

"The Return of the Native" is one of William Croft Dickinson's strongest stories.

     'The trouble with all you Scots is that you live too much in the past.' Galbraith was trailing his coat as usual, but this time it was MacDonald, our visiting Fulbright Professor, who took up the challenge.

     'The trouble is that sometimes we cannot escape the past,' he said.

     'None of us can,' retorted Galbraith. 'The past in the present is obvious all the time.'

     'I meant something a little different from that,' replied MacDonald. 'I meant a past that may come back, unexpectedly, to disturb the present.'

     For once Galbraith seemed to be at a loss. 'In what way?' he asked, lamely.

     'Well,' answered MacDonald. 'I could give you one instance from my own experience, if you'd care for it. It's a story I don't often tell, and I can't say that I emerged with credit; but it certainly underlines the point I wanted to make.'

*   *   *

Quieta Non Movere (1963)

A witch's prophecy and a black dog on a remote island.

For those confused by the dialogue in the first few pages, this helped me.

[....] Barbara Napier, as you know, was one of the famous coven of North Berwick witches who were accused in 1590 and 1591 of trying to raise a storm to wreck James VI's ship, or that of his bride, when the King and his Queen were on their way to Scotland from Denmark. And while most of the witches were put to death, Barbara Napier was lucky enough to be acquitted — though the jury themselves got into trouble for their clemency.

     The next bit, I agree, is less well authenticated; but you will soon see how closely it fits in with a well-known fact.

     Logan, it is said, did consult Barbara Napier, who gave him a large black dog which, she averred, would scent out the treasure for him. More than that, she assured him that the dog would henceforth be the guardian of Wolf's Crag, and would never cease to guard it until, so she said, 'your bones find their last resting-place in your grave.'

*   *   *

Let the Dead Bury the Dead (1963)

[....] 'Do the bones ever give you the creeps?'

    Abercrombie paused before answering. A long pause.

     'Sometimes,' he conceded at last. 'I had a grim experience when I was still a young lecturer. And, to be frank, that's why I concentrated on iron-age forts and, for some twenty years, left burials severely alone.'

*   *   *

The Castle Guide (1963)

     MANY YEARS AGO, in the deepening dusk of a June evening, I was strolling past the Castle of St Andrews when I noticed that, strangely, the admission-gate was still open. Attracted by the grey and sombre ruins, silhouetted against the darkening sky, I stopped at the open gate. If I were to venture inside, what strange shadows would I see? How different would those broken walls and towers appear?

     Sauntering down to the pend, I passed through its deep-black vault and out into the castle-close. There, spell-bound by a beauty and mystery that were enhanced by the fading light, I stood for a while motionless. Below me I could hear the rhythmic plash of the sea on the rocks that bore the castle's weight, while the light sough of the wind could have come from the ancient stones themselves, whispering to one another their memories of the past. And soon, caught in the magic of the place, I began to give words and meaning to the sounds that came and went:

'Beaton, proud Roman Cardinal, murdered and defiled.' 

'Guns, French guns, breaking down block-house and tower.'

*   *   *

The Witch's Bone (1963)

This is probably the story where Dickinson comes closest to Jamesian cold-bloodedness.

     MICHAEL ELLIOTT, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A. (SCOT.), frowned at the letter which had come from the Honorary Curator of the local Museum. It was quite a short letter and quite a simple one: merely asking him if he would allow the Museum to borrow his 'Witch's Bone' for a special exhibition covering Folk Beliefs and Customs. But Michael Elliott found the letter far from welcome. Short and simple as it was, it revived and increased all the fearful troubles of his mind. More than that, dare he now let the 'Bone' pass out of his own keeping – even if only for a little while?

     Every day, for the last week, that witch's bone had preoccupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. The witch's bone that had brought to an end all his quarrels with Mackenzie Grant. The witch's bone that had possibly given him a revenge far more terrible than anything he had sought or expected. In a fit of anger he had thought only of testing its efficacy, never really believing it would work. And now he knew that the bone had worked only too well. Or had it? Had he indeed compassed Grant's death? All he knew was that Grant had died and that now he found it hard to recover his peace of mind....

*   *   *

The Sweet Singers (1953) 

Our narrator recounts some strange experiences while competing in 'our annual inter-university competition for the Professors' Challenge Cup at golf.'

"The Seventeenth Hole at Duncaster" this is not. With twiddling, it might have risen to Mulliner heights, but the story's modesty lets it evanesce too quickly.

     'What was it?' I asked in a low voice.    

     But Lomas only motioned me to be silent; and so, side by side, we stood tense and expectant before an inn window overlooking the grey North Sea and the shadowy outline of the inhospitable Bass.

     Suddenly I sensed that Lomas had stiffened; and at that same moment my ears caught the strange sound of a distant singing. The singing seemed to be that of many voices joined in harmony; but although there was this impression of many voices, the sound itself was little louder than the whisper of the wind and so faint that it came and went between the rhythmic crash of the breaking waves. Yet there was this also – with the singing I seemed to be no longer within the confines of the room but out in the open air and in the spaces of the night....

*   *   *

The House of Balfother (1963)

 [....] 'I know nothing about legends. Scottish history is too full of them,' said Petrie, critical as always. 'But, if someone will give me a long drink, I will tell you of one "immortal" who was certainly burdened by the years – so much so that he had declined into something worse than a second childhood. Yet from what I saw and experienced, I shudder to think what "life" would have meant to him had he not suffered an unnatural and terrible end.' 

     Someone got up to provide the drink.

*   *   *

His Own Number (1963)

[....] 'But I can tell you a tale of an electronic computer that was in perfect order and yet three times gave the same answer to an unfortunate technician.'

     'Something like a wrist-watch which is affected by the pulse-beat of the wearer?' suggested Hayles.

     'Something more than that,' said Munro. 'A great deal more. But what that "something" was, I simply don't know. Or can an instrument have "second sight", or respond to forces that are beyond our reckoning? I wish I knew the answer to that. However, I'll tell you my tale, and then each of you can try to explain it to his own satisfaction.'

*   *   *

The MacGregor Skull (1963)

     'And the Campbells had seized the Macgregors' lands, and were, in effect, fortifying themselves against those whom they had disinherited?"

     'Roughly, yes,' agreed Henderson. 'It's a complicated story; and you should read "The Arrow of Glenlyon" as well as "The Black Book of Taymouth." The Macgregors, if you like, were unlucky. On the other hand, the Campbells undoubtedly had a knack of acquiring their neighbours' lands.' 

     'Aye, and there are parts where they still have an ill name,' put in Rennie. 'Yet they were not always the lucky ones. Let me go up to my room and I will collect a story of a Campbell who was worsted by a dead Macgregor, or so it would seem. As strange a story as you've ever heard,' he continued, making for the door. 'I'm not saying it is true. But it was written down by a parish minister.'

*   *   *

I did not feel the need above to comment on the aesthetic quality of each story in Dark Encounters. The fact that they exist, that William Croft Dickinson devoted the time and energy he did to them, seems sufficient. Like A. L. Rowse, his postwar achievements were entirely academic: he did not spawn imitators to his fiction, but was an imitator himself of what he liked in two hundred years of uncanny literature in the British Isles.

Readers after more contemporary archeological/excavation horror fiction will find solid stories reviewed here, here, and here.

Jay

20 June 2022