| Preface |
| An Imaginative Woman |
| The Three Strangers |
| The Withered Arm |
| Fellow-Townsmen |
| Interlopers at the Knap |
| The Distracted Preacher |
An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is shown bypresenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a small collection as thefollowing. But in the neighbourhood of county-towns tales of executions used toform a large proportion of the local traditions; and though never personallyacquainted with any chief operator at such scenes, the writer of these pageshad as a boy the privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who appliedfor the office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy because he failed toget it, some slight mitigation of his grief being to dwell upon strikingepisodes in the lives of those happier ones who had held it with success andrenown. His tale of disappointment used to cause some wonder why his ambitionshould have taken such an unfortunate form, but its nobleness was neverquestioned. In those days, too, there was still living an old woman who, forthe cure of some eating disease, had been taken in her youth to have her‘blood turned’ by a convict’s corpse, in the manner describedin ‘The Withered Arm.’
Since writing this story some years ago I have been reminded by an aged friendwho knew ‘Rhoda Brook’ that, in relating her dream, myforgetfulness has weakened the facts out of which the tale grew. In reality itwas while lying down on a hot afternoon that the incubus oppressed her and sheflung it off, with the results upon the body of the original as described. Tomy mind the occurrence of such a vision in the daytime is more impressive thanif it had happened in a midnight dream. Readers are therefore asked to correctthe misrelation, which affords an instance of how our imperfect memoriesinsensibly formalize the fresh originality of living fact—from whoseshape they slowly depart, as machine-made castings depart by degrees from thesharp hand-work of the mould.
Among the many devices for concealing smuggled goods in caves and pits of theearth, that of planting an apple-tree in a tray or box which was placed overthe mouth of the pit is, I believe, unique, and it is detailed in one of thetales precisely as described by an old carrier of ‘tubs’—aman who was afterwards in my father’s employ for over thirty years. Inever gathered from his reminiscences what means were adopted for lifting thetree, which, with its roots, earth, and receptacle, must have been ofconsiderable weight. There is no doubt, however, that the thing was donethrough many years. My informant often spoke, too, of the horribly suffocatingsensation produced by the pair of spirit-tubs slung upon the chest and back,after stumbling with the burden of them for several miles inland over a roughcountry and in darkness. He said that though years of his youth and youngmanhood were spent in this irregular business, his profits from the same, takenall together, did not average the wages he might have earned in a steadyemployment, whilst the fatigues and risks were excessive.
I may add that the first story in the series turns upon a physical possibilitythat may attach to women of imaginative temperame