The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 280: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXII THE GRAVESTONE THe reader will not have forgotten that beautiful little village in Westmoreland where Barney the Burker obtained the situation of assistant grave-digger to old Jonathan Carnabie. To this village we must now return. It was an early hour in the morning, and a female, clad in gipsy-like apparel, stood in the middle of the churchyard, contemplating that gravestone which bore the simple in- scription of ‘‘ October, 1830.”’ There was nothing wild in her look now, nothing wandering nor restless; it was fixed and replete with sadness. For several minutes did she thus stand gazing upon that headstone, as if the singular conciseness of the inscription thus riveted her attention, or else as if there were something in the date which more or less associated itself with certain memories floating in her brain. The reader of course recognizes Crazy Jane, and it is there- fore useless to observe any mystery upon the point. The woman had intervals which, if not positively lucid, were at all events characterized by a certain clearness of perception in comparison with other periods, as, for instance, when she gave the information which led to so startling a turn in the trial of Lettice Rodney. The present occasion was one of the happier moods of her intellect, as she stood gazing upon the tombstone; and if an observer had been nigh, he might probably have perceived that beneath that fixity of look and mournful calmness of countenance there was a certain inward agitation or excitement, arising from the powerful efforts and the straining attempts which the poor woman was making to disentangle her thoughts completely and marshal all her mental associations for the purpose of clear and intelligible review. 253 CORNICLOOOKS (CO)