Wessex Tales | Page 3

apply to you, and you may have
other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, officers,
members and agents harmless from all liability, cost and expense,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2]
alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book
or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all
other references to Project Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR

[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the gross
profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to
calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is
due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation" the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax
return. Please contact us beforehand to let us know your plans and to
work out the details.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, public
domain etexts, and royalty free copyright licenses. If you are interested
in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please
contact Michael Hart at: [email protected]
*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END*

WESSEX TALES

Contents:
Preface An Imaginative Woman The Three Strangers The Withered
Arm Fellow-Townsmen Interlopers at the Knap The Distracted
Preacher

PREFACE

An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is
shown by presenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a
small collection as the following. But in the neighbourhood of
county-towns tales of executions used to form a large proportion of the
local traditions; and though never personally acquainted with any chief
operator at such scenes, the writer of these pages had as a boy the
privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who applied for the
office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy because he failed to
get it, some slight mitigation of his grief being to dwell upon striking
episodes in the lives of those happier ones who had held it with success
and renown. His tale of disappointment used to cause some wonder
why his ambition should have taken such an unfortunate form, but its
nobleness was never questioned. In those days, too, there was still
living an old woman who, for the cure of some eating disease, had been
taken in her youth to have her 'blood turned' by a convict's corpse, in
the manner described in 'The Withered Arm.'
Since writing this story some years ago I have been reminded by an
aged friend who knew 'Rhoda Brook' that, in relating her dream, my
forgetfulness has weakened the facts our of which the tale grew. In
reality it was while lying down on a hot afternoon that the incubus
oppressed her and she flung it off, with the results upon the body of the
original as described. To my mind the occurrence of such a vision in
the daytime is more impressive than if it had happened in a midnight
dream. Readers are therefore asked to correct the misrelation, which
affords an instance of how our imperfect memories insensibly
formalize the fresh originality of living fact--from whose shape they
slowly depart, as machine-made castings depart by degrees from the
sharp hand-work of the mould.
Among the many devices for concealing smuggled