THE DORSET DING-DONG-

( A GHOST TALE)

It happened in the days when the muffled sound of horses' hooves and the jingling of hansom cabs could be heard through the swirling fog of London town. Jack the Ripper stalked the foul streets of Whitechapel. But here in the dark depths of the Dorset countryside, although the air seemed cold and pure, infinitely more supernatural and frightening events were taking place Strong men buckled at the knees and the breasts of women prickled with the fear of icy fingers reaching from beyond the grave.

A party had gathered for the New Year festivities in a remote farmhouse called St. Lukes. Tired after playing a vigorous game of Trivial pursuits, the guests of Farmer Jack and his missus were gathered around the fire. Some minutes before it had been blazing cheerfully. But now because of some unexplained suspension of nature's laws, the burning logs collapsed into a depressed heap of dying embers. The spirits of the guests were dampened by a sudden chill which entered the room and the conversation suddenly ceased. Outside an owl hooted mournfully. Above the keening sound of the cold north wind could be heard the faintest echo of distant ringing.

Farmer Jack shuddered at the sound and casting an anxious glance in the direction of the snow-flecked window, said: 'That be the Ding of the Dong, If we aim to keep our sanity this night, we should partake of strong liquor.'

When he had generously filled the glasses with home-brewed whiskey, Auditor Joe, one of the guests, remarked: 'Is your hand trembling from the DTs, or fear of discovery by Customs and Excise?'

'I be not afeared of the Excise, nor of any mortal man,' Farmer Jack replied resolutely. 'But there be a danged phantom stalking abroad that have haunted this farmhouse for two-hundred years.'

Another guest, Dr. Long John Silva, furrowed his brow and leaned forward. In so doing he disturbed the parrot on his shoulder, causing it to flutter its wings and cry out: 'Pieces of Eight .– Pieces of Eight .– . Pieces of Eight.

'You've 'ad your whack of After Eight Mints,' Dr. Silva chided the crazed bird.

Addressing his host, he said reprovingly: 'We live in the nineteenth-century, a period of unprecedented: scientific advance, in which there is no room for belief in ghosties, poltergeists and things that go bump in the night.'

Farmer Jack threw him a withering glance.

'You being a man of science may not give credence to such things, but as a simple man of the soil I can only talk of what has been faithfully witnessed. It is written in the parish records that every hundred years the Dong that stalks these broad acres enters my house on New Year's Eve.'

Dr. Silva raised his eyebrows, in a manner that indicated profound scepticism.

Interposing himself between his guests and the fire, in a vain attempt to warm his broad beam, the bluff farmer said vehemently: 'You may not believe in this apparition, but the bull that has its pizzle twisted by the dreadul Dong and the cow that has its udder frozen roar their belief to the night skies. If the Ding believes in its Dong, then it exists right enough and that's all there is about it.'

Dr. Silva's parrot ruffled its multi-coloured plumage uneasily.

Farmer Jack wiped his brow with a red kerchief and sat down. Staring gloomily into the faintly glowing ashes, he muttered: 'But I have no wish to cast an unnecessary pall over these proceedings, so we'll discuss it no more and accept what fate has in store for us.'

The auditor's wife spoke up forthrightly: 'Come on, Tosh – you have whetted our curiosity. Don't 'e keep us in suspense.'

Farmer Jack gave an involuntary shudder at these words.

'Suspense – by which of course you mean something that has been suspended – is the nub of my story. I'll tell it exactly as it happened. T'will explain why I live in mortal fear at the close of this year eighteen-eighty-four.

In the nearby village of Shipton Gorge there once lived a poor young lad called Willy Anstruther who fell madly in love with the squire's daughter. Because she was much above his station and he had no readies she spurned his attentions and taunted him for his poverty. Crossed in love, his brains became addled. Come hay-making time, when the lads and lasses were disporting themselves in the way nature intended, Will would lie in wait and flash at them the one thing: of value he possessed in the world. Eventually he was caught and given a punishment that befitted his crime. They tied a bell to his willy. From thenceforth he was unable to indulge in his favourite pastime, because the tinkling of a bell preceded his coming. Known in these parts as Ding-Dong Willie, his shame and humiliation weighed upon him so much that he died the following New Years Eve

Ever since his ghost has haunted these hills and pastures on the anniversary of his death. There be one hundred farms around and he visits each one of them in turn. His arrival is presaged by the mournful ringing of the Ding and is soon followed by the spectral sight of Willie's Dong. An unearthly light surrounds it and it is well known that wherever it appears the land is blighted, ewes stop lambing and women are so affrighted that their nipples turn into nicicles.'

'Don't you mean icicles, Sir, Silva intervened.

'I mean what I say,' Farmer Jack snapped. 'No more no less.'

Abashed by his tone, Dr. Silva stroked his parrot's feathers and murmured: 'Continue with your account.'

They all listened raptly, as Farmer Jack, went on: 'Exactly one-hundred years ago the then owner of St. Lukes farm, concerned for what might happen to his flocks and to his womenfolk during the impending visitation of the Dorset Ding-Dong, employed a clairvoyant to try and exorcise the ghost.'

'I didn't think ghosts needed exercise, Betty Rumpole, the wife of Irish Jack, said facetiously, hoping to lighten the oppressive atmosphere.

Ignoring the interruption, Farmer Jack continued: 'This clairvoyant placed his trust in the magical powers of a rabbi's foot.'

Betty Humpole was convinced that he meant a rabbit's foot. But observing his tense expression as he glanced anxiously at the moonbeams streaming through the window, she remained discreetly silent.

'Wasn't that a cowbell I heard just now?' Irish Jaok enquired innocently.

'Nay,' said Farmer Jack, 'that be no cowbell – all the cows are locked in their byres – that be the dreaded Ding of the Dong. But I'll continue with my tale while there's still time for the telling... Living at the farmhouse was a fair young virgin, the dairy maid. If she were even to catch a glimpse of the Dorset Ding-Dong she were like to lose her mind, so she were locked in her attic room for safety. All the farm hands surrounded the house, each one carrying a rushlight and a mogen dovid because there was a belief in Dorset at the time that the Shield of David has magical powers against which even the most evil of dongs cannot prevail.

'But as the farmhands, the farmer and the clairvoyant, kept their ceaseless vigil and listened intently for the approaching Ding Dong, a piercing scream came from the attic window. It was followed by a maniacal laugh. The luminous Dong appeared briefly at the window then it flew into the night sky, its Ding descending to a dolourous Dong as it crashed the Time barrier.

'The farmer and his companions pushed inside, to find poor Nell lying on the bed as naked as the day she was born. Her eyes were tightly shut and she was breathing slowly as if in a trance. Shaking his head sadly, the farmer gently placed his hand on her breast. After a few minutes he pronounced authoritatively? 'T'is cold as a nicicle. I'm afraid she's been 'ad by the Dorset Ding Dong.' Reverently covering her naked body with a quilted counterpane, he ordered the others to leave the room

Exactly one year later, poor Nell gave birth to a baby boy, with a Ding Dong exactly resembling that of its progenitor.

A horrified silence followed. Farmer Jack threw a log on the fire. It burst into flame throwing an elongated shadow on the ceiling. A flurry of snow rattled against the windowpane. From the distant hill could be heard a faint but persistent ringing.

'That whole story is a farrago of nonsense,' one of the ladies present remarked, trying hard to reassure herself. 'Who's ever heard of a pregnancy lasting twelve months!'

Wells Farrago is American, Farmer Jack answered. 'This is Dorset, England. It were no use trying to suggest that the farmer was responsible because it is well known in these parts that the Dorset Ding-Dong 'as a delayed fuse.'

'But didn't you assert that the Ding-Dong blights everything in its path?' Mrs. Silva interjected.

It blights the crops and the animals and brings shame to honest women,' Farmer Jack explained patiently.

'Why didn't didn't the talisman protect poor Nell?' Auditor Joe enquired.

'They 'ad holes in them,' Farmer Jack explained, with disarming Dorset logic'

Betty Rumpole shuddered.

'Is there no cure for the nicicles?'

'They do say there be some herbs - rosemary, garfuncle and thyme that gently rubbed in help the condition.'

'But does this ghastly apparition affect only women?'

'Heavens, no,' Farmer Jack declared. 'For men it's worse, inconceivably worse. They become trembling wrecks, unable to perform their conjugal duty. Such a fate befell a lad hereabouts. It took nine partridges, eight Xmas puds, seven dairy maids and six pints of cider to restore him to a semblance of his old self. It were touch and go for a while.'

One of the logs crackled and burst into flame. From afar came the mournful howling of a dog driven mad by the presence of a supernatural being. The howling stopped suddenly drowned by the clamant clanging of a bell.

'How long have we got before it us upon us?' Auditor Joe enquired.

Farmer Jack looked at his gold hunter.

'Five minutes exactly. It will invade this room on the stroke of midnight. Perhaps we should take another drink because it may be our last. With a trembling hand, Farmer Jack filled all the proffered glasses to the brim. As Irish Jack, his mind in a turmoil, sipped the burning liquor, he had a sudden flash of inspiration.

'There is a new science invented by professor Freudenstein of Vienna that may help us. It was spoken of highly by my good friend Shylock Holmes.'

'Sherlock,' someone corrected him.

'No, sir, Shylock is a Jewish detective who uses psycho-analysis, and all the latent forces of the subconscious mind, to provide a bulwark against the supernatural.'

The sound of the inexorably approaching bell now rose to a new pitch of urgency. As if he were a prisoner calling for his last meal before being executed, the parrot suddenly shrieked: 'Pieces of After– Eight. Pieces of After Eight.'

Dr. Silva silenced it with a vicious blow on the beak. Then glancing quickly at his watch, he addressed himself courteously to Irish Jack. 'Swiftly, sir, if you will, tell us how it may help.''

Irish Jack threw back his glass of whiskey and with a dramatic gesture pointed to the window from whence the menacing sound of the Ding-Dong came nearer and nearer

'By a process of transference first enunciated by the illustrious Professor Freudenstein we may persuade the Dorset Ding-Dong that it is something else – something alike in shape but less deadly. Farmer Jack has informed us that if the Ding believes in its Dong we are all doomed, but if I can shake that belief there is a chance – albeit a remote one – that we may all be saved.'

'How shall you do that, sir?'

'By employing the Shakespearian eloquence of King Lear's brother and kindred soul, Edward Lear, a notoriously successful ghost-hunter. It was he who first recognised that the Dongs are motivated by an obscene desire to propagate their own kind, spreading terror throughout the English countryside. They will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. Our only hope is to employ the new-fangled science of psychiatry and convince the Dong by a process of sublimation that it is a higher, altogether less menacing, organ.

Heedless of danger, Irish Jack opened the window, admitting an icy blast. The remaining hairs on his head stood on end as he saw a lighted object that resembled a cigar-shaped UFO hovering over the cow sheds. Its ceaseless clanging enveloped all the farm buildings, loosening bolts on the farm machinery and rattling the galvanized roofs.

Then bracing himself, he hurled the immortal words of Edward Lear into the darkness.

"Slowly it wanders – pauses –creeps –

Anon it sparkles – flashes and leaps,

A light on the Bong-tree stem it throws;

And those who watch at that midnight hour

.From Hall or Terrace or Lofty Tower

Cry as the wild light passes along

The Dong! the Dong!

The Dong with the luminous nose.

A nose as strange as a nose could be

Of vast proportions and painted red

And tied with chords at the back of the head

– on a hollow rounded space it ended

With a luminous rounded space it ended

All fenced about

To prevent the wind from blowing it out.

It was on no avail. The attempt to shake the invincible faith of the Ding in its Dong failed abysmally. Still the dreaded apparition came nearer and nearer. So powerful was the sound that the oak beams in the ceiling trembled like black currant jelly and the crossed swords above the inglenook vibrated in unison as though played by mad musicians.

Then Dr. Silva demonstrated the genius of modern science in its dealings with the supernatural. Removing the terrified parrot from his shoulder, he marched to the window and in the face of impending doom, cried out in a commanding voice the following words:

"Ding Dong Bell,

Pussy's in the well."

As if by magic the awful ringing ceased. The silence of a peaceful New Year descended over St. Luke's farm.

'What happened to the Dorset Ding Dong?' a relieved Farmer Jack enquired after a prolonged pause.

A faint glow emanating from a nearby well provided the answer.

Dr. Silva shut the window and fed his parrot an After Eight mint.

The fire blazed again, throwing out a comforting red glow. The guests all looked at each other with heartfelt relief.

Struck by a sudden thought, the farmer's wife enquired: 'If the Dong was just a nose how did Nell get pregnant all those years ago?'

'Never mind, my dear,' Farmer Jack replied, 'the only thing of consequence is that she had a Very Nappy New Year. And a Nappy New Year to all my guests...'