The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 284: what you’re looking at

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

THE GRAVESTONE 257 thought Jonathan Carnabie to himself; and suffering a minute or two to elapse until Crazy Jane’s paroxysm of erief was moderated, he said, slowly and quietly, ‘“ Yes, to the best of my recollection the lady had large dark eyes; but as for their lustre, it was gone, and as for their sweetness of expression, it was lost in the dull vacancy of her gaze.” ‘Poor dear lady!’”’ murmured Crazy Jane. ‘“‘ Oh, what must she have suffered! what must she have suffered! And my sufferings, they have been as nothing in comparison. Do you mean, old man, do you mean that she was mad? ”’ “TI do,’”’ answered Jonathan. Then, after a pause, he went on to say: “I was telling you that I conveyed her into the parsonage, where the servant-girl attended upon her; and though she came back to life, it could scarcely be called to consciousness, for the poor creature’s mind seemed totally gone. She took no more notice of anything than a child of six months old. Stop, I forgot! Yes, when the maid un- dressed her, there was a small velvet bag, sewn all round, — a little bag, not near so large as the palm of your hand, — and it was fastened to a black ribbon around her neck. This, as the maid told me, — for of course I was not present when the lady was undressed, — she clutched with a sudden vehemence, crying out, ‘ No, no, you shall not take it from me!’ The girl never meant to take the bag away, and there- fore she at once told the poor lady not to be frightened on that score. This was the only thing she seemed to take any notice of, and when she found that the bag was safe, she relapsed into her dull, dead, apathetic condition, having no further regard for anything. A surgeon was sent for, and he said that the poor lady was utterly bereft of her senses, that her mind was a perfect void, that her reason was totally gone. Of course we all thought that as her head was shaved, she had escaped from some lunatic asylum, and that it would not therefore be very difficult to find out where she had come from. Nevertheless, she had evidently been walking far, for her shoes were worn right through, her stockings also, and the soles of her feet were cut and bleeding.” Here Crazy Jane gave a deep convulsive moan, and staggering against the gravestone with the concise inscription, she leaned over it weeping bitterly. Several minutes thus elapsed, until she suddenly raised her countenance again, and then it wore a look so altered, so wild, that the old sexton CORnnICLOOKS (CO)