PREFACE
An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is shown by presenting two stories of hangmen and one of a military execution in such a small collection as the following. But as to the former, in the neighbourhood of county-towns hanging matters used to form a large proportion of the local
tradition; 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 his listener some wonder why his ambition should have taken such an unfortunate form, by limiting itself to a profession of which there could
be only one practitioner in England at one time, when it might have aimed at-something that would have afforded him more chances - such as the office of a judge, a bishop, or even a member of Parliament - 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 out 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 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 "The Distracted Preacher" 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 be might have earned in a steady employment, whilst the fatigues and risks were excessive.

Thomas Hardy April 1896

I may add that the action of this story is founded on certain smuggling exploits that occurred between 1825 and 1830, and were brought to a close in the latter year by the trial of the chief actors at the Assizes before Baron Bolland for their desperate armed resistance to the Custom-house officers during the
landing of a cargo of spirits. This happened only a little time after the doings recorded in the narrative, in which some incidents that came out at the trial are also embodied.

In the culminating affray the character called Owlett was badly wounded, and several of the Preventive-men would have lost their lives through being overpowered by the far more numerous body of smugglers, but for the forbearance and manly conduct of the latter. This served them in good stead at their trial, in which the younger Erskine prosecuted, their defence being entrusted to Erie. Baron Bolland's summing up was strongly in their favour; they were merely ordered to enter into their own recognizances for good behaviour and discharged. (See also as to facts the note at the end of the tale.)

However, the stories are but dreams, and not records They were first collected and published under their present title in two volumes, in I888.

Thomas Hardy May 1912.

An experience of the writer in respect of the tale called "A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four" is curious enough to be mentioned here. The incident of Napoleon's visit to the English coast by night, with a view to discovering a convenient spot for landing his army of invasion, was an invention of the
authors on which he had some doubts because of its improbability. This was m 1882, when it was first published. Great was his surprise several years later to be told that it was a real tradition. How far this is true he is unaware.

Thomas Hardy June 1919.

This was Hardy's first collection of short stories. Hardy recorded the legends, superstitions, local customs, and lore of a Wessx that was rapidly passing out of meomory. But these seven tales also portray the social and economic stresses of 1880's Dorset and reveal Hardy's growing scepticism about his achieving personal and sexual satisfaction in the modern world. By turns humorous, ironic, macabre, and elegiac, these stories show the range of Hardy's short-telling gift.

Story One

The Three Strangers

Story Two

A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four

Story Three

The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion - The narrator, to whom Phyllis has told her tale, gives us a lot of information about the camp and the soldiers who have invaded this quiet spot of Wessex countryside. Phyllis tells her story with her own lips. She was then an old lady of seventy-five, and her auditor a lad of fifteen. Hardy gives a sense of living history to the narrative. There is a marked contrast between the glamour of the soldiers in their uniforms and the simplicity of the lives of the people in the "ravines and hollows among the hills".

Story Four

The Withered Arm - As many of Hardy's stories were originally published in magazines this story is set out in nine sections, the tension is kept up in each episode. The story centres Rhoda and Gertrude. These two women are linked in so many ways that each one's life is profoundly influenced by the other's. The tensions of jealousy and sympathy, affection and rejection are at the heart of the story.

Story Five

Fellow-Townsmen

Story Six

Interlopers at the Knap -

Story Seven

The Distracted Preacher - Knowledge of the history of the area in the early 1820s to appreciate the story fully. The coast of Dorset has many hidden coves which made landing contraband liquor from across the Channel easier than along the Sussex coast. Smuggling was a community enterprise which depended on village loyalty and solidarity. There were serious efforts on the part of the authorities to put a stop to these activities, with the result that customs men met with increasingly violent opposition. Hardy's tale uses comedy to tell of one such village, yet there is an underlying understanding of the ending of this kind of life.