Wessex Tales | Page 4

goods in caves and
pits of the earth, that of planting an apple-tree in a tray or box which
was placed over the mouth of the pit is, I believe, unique, and it is
detailed in one of the tales precisely as described by an old carrier of
'tubs'--a man who was afterwards in my father's employ for over thirty
years. I never gathered from his reminiscences what means were

adopted for lifting the tree, which, with its roots, earth, and receptacle,
must have been of considerable weight. There is no doubt, however,
that the thing was done through many years. My informant often spoke,
too, of the horribly suffocating sensation 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 rough country and in
darkness. He said that though years of his youth and young manhood
were spent in this irregular business, his profits from the same, taken all
together, did not average the wages he might have earned in a steady
employment, whilst the fatigues and risks were excessive.
I may add that the first story in the series turns upon a physical
possibility that may attach to women of imaginative temperament, and
that is well supported by the experiences of medical men and other
observers of such manifestations.
T. H. April 1896.

AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN

When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a
well-known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel
to find his wife. She, with the children, had rambled along the shore,
and Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the
military-looking hall-porter
'By Jove, how far you've gone! I am quite out of breath,' Marchmill
said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was
reading as she walked, the three children being considerably further
ahead with the nurse.
Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had
thrown her. 'Yes,' she said, 'you've been such a long time. I was tired of
staying in that dreary hotel. But I am sorry if you have wanted me,
Will?'
'Well, I have had trouble to suit myself. When you see the airy and
comfortable rooms heard of, you find they are stuffy and uncomfortable.
Will you come and see if what I've fixed on will do? There is not much
room, I am afraid; hut I can light on nothing better. The town is rather
full.'
The pair left the children and nurse to continue their ramble, and went

back together.
In age well-balanced, in personal appearance fairly matched, and in
domestic requirements conformable, in temper this couple differed,
though even here they did not often clash, he being equable, if not
lymphatic, and she decidedly nervous and sanguine. It was to their
tastes and fancies, those smallest, greatest particulars, that no common
denominator could be applied. Marchmill considered his wife's likes
and inclinations somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and material.
The husband's business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city
northwards, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was best
characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the
muse.' An impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking
humanely from detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever
she reflected that everything he manufactured had for its purpose the
destruction of life. She could only recover her equanimity by assuring
herself that some, at least, of his weapons were sooner or later used for
the extermination of horrid vermin and animals almost as cruel to their
inferiors in species as human beings were to theirs.
She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any
objection to having him for a husband. Indeed, the necessity of getting
life-leased at all cost, a cardinal virtue which all good mothers teach,
kept her from thinking of it at all till she had closed with William, had
passed the honeymoon, and reached the reflecting stage. Then, like a
person who has stumbled upon some object in the dark, she wondered
what she had got; mentally walked round it, estimated it; whether it
were rare or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; were a clog or a
pedestal, everything to her or nothing.
She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had kept her heart
alive by pitying her proprietor's obtuseness and want of refinement,
pitying herself, and letting off her delicate and ethereal emotions in
imaginative occupations, day-dreams, and night- sighs, which perhaps
would not much have disturbed William if he had known of them.
Her figure was small, elegant, and slight in build, tripping, or rather
bounding, in movement. She was dark-eyed, and had that marvellously
bright and liquid sparkle in each pupil