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The Ghost of Dunkerley (1944) by William Henry Long ⭐⭐⭐⭐
My copy of The Ghost of Dunkerley has a dust jacket and was published by Dorrance & Company. It is 43 pages long. It was a gift from my parents.
It has an inscription “To my friend Phyllis Liston with best wishes” and is signed by the author.
It also has a cool message on the back of the dust cover.
This is a story inside a story, all in rhyming form. It begins with a young traveling poet who stops at an inn on Christmas Eve. He finds that there is much merrymaking inside this inn, and it is full of life. He is not in great spirits, as he is tired and cold. He resolves to stay the night, and after the festivities end and the patrons leave, the poet asks the landlord about something he overheard the revelers talk about. He had overheard mention of a local ghost story, and he says he’d like to hear it. The landlord protests a little, saying the tale is long and he says that his daughter (who is also there with them in the room) should be off to bed soon. The landlord’s pretty daughter is the main reason that the poet wanted to hear the story, hoping it would detain her presence in the room. He pushes to hear the tale, so the poet and daughter sit and listen to the landlord tell the mysterious tale of The Ghost of Dunkerley.
There was once an old, mysterious house that was said to be haunted. This house had a tomb-like door, and no one living had ever been known to inhabit it. For many years at midnight, the people of Dunkerley had heard hoof-beats upon the bridge that led to this house, They had seen a hooded rider with a long black cloak ride to the house and enter, lantern in hand.
One day, a doctor enlists an old tinker, whose age is given as “four score and ten”, to try to break the lock at this haunted house to investigate what lies behind. It takes some doing, but they finally get the door open, and they decide to do some exploring. The house stinks inside and is very dirty, The tinker goes back to the door, and says that he will go no further, but he would stand guard for them. The doctor and his squire go on with lantern in hand, and they go upstairs, but the lantern’s light goes out before long. They were very frightened,, but they now heard beautiful music coming from somewhere in the house. They follow the music, and find an old man playing the violin in the most moving way. After the amazing music that emanated from the violin had stopped, the doctor and squire realize that the man was blind. They wanted to tell the man how beautiful his music had been, what a vivid story it told, but they also didn’t want to scare him. After all, the old violinist didn’t even know that his concert had been witnessed! So, because of this, they went quietly out of the room. They went back to rejoin the tinker who was still standing guard at the door.
At this point, the landlord’s tale is briefly interrupted by the poet who points out that Jo (the landlord’s daughter) is fast asleep, and the landlord said he knew she’d be asleep before the tale ended. She was sleeping in a very uncomfortable position, so they set her to rights and the landlord went on the with the story.
Three years passed, but still the phantom rider would go to the house every night until one year ago when someone knocked at the door of the landlord’s inn. The door is answered, and it is a beautiful, youthful lady. At length, the landlord came to realize that this is the very phantom rider that everyone always talks about. She tells the landlord that she has come to town to seek a doctor for the old man who lives in the house on the hill. So the lady, Jo, the landlord, and the doctor go to the house to tend to the old man in the mysterious house.
The history of the man is told, and they find out that he had once been the king’s knight-errant. The house and land had been a gift from the king, so he could have food and shelter. They also learned that the lady (the phantom rider) had been sent by royal decree from a convent. Sadly, it came to pass that night that the old man, The Ghost of Dunkerley, died a leper. The story ends, and we are told that the man’s body was taken to the castle for burial rites.
The book gets a rocky start with the rhyming, but gets its stride. Some of the rhymes are a real stretch. The writer is obviously having fun with the enveloping story. My only regret is that we do not get to say goodbye to the characters at the inn, as the book ends abruptly after the tale is told. I wanted to hear something more from Jo, but she went to sleep before she could say much.
I almost gave this story 3 stars, but I started liking it even more while writing about it, so I gave it an extra star. It’s not a 5 star, because some of the rhymes are just way too stretchy, The flow sometimes is broken by the ends of sentences before the line is finished.
Overall, this was a really good ghost story for Christmas! I will be revisiting it every year around this time. I read it aloud to my dog, and he seemed to enjoy it.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a thing about the author, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the only book published under his name. I sure wish I knew something about him!
