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 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