The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 226: what you’re looking at

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

THE COMMITTEE OF PRIVILEGES 201 that she was dead, for she was pale, cold, and rigid as a corpse. She however proved to be merely in a deep swoon. He knew that she was a lady by her appearance, though her dress was much travel-soiled, holes were worn through her shoes and stockings, her feet were cut and bleeding. Jona- than bore her off to the parsonage, which was close by the church. The clergyman and his family were absent at the time on a visit to some friends in Lancashire, and there was no one but a female servant in the parsonage. This woman, however, did her best to recover the poor lady from her insensibility, and in time she succeeded. A medical man was sent for, and he at once pronounced that she was utterly bereft of her senses, that her reason was gone, that her mind was a perfect void. Indeed, her head had evidently been but very recently shaved, and it was therefore con- cluded she had escaped from some lunatic asylum. She had a little velvet bag attached to a ribbon around her neck, and the only sign of vital consciousness which she dis- played was when any one attempted to touch this bag. The surgeon said it was useless to excite the poor lady to frenzy by taking the little bag from her in order to open it, for that it doubtless merely contained some trinkets which had been given to amuse her at the asylum whence she had escaped, and that therefore these trinkets them- selves could not be supposed to afford any clue as to who she was or whence she had come. The intelligence of the discovery of the poor lady in the churchyard speedily spread through the village, and reached the ears of a worthy gentleman of thename of Ashton, who was then residing at Woodbridge. He felt interested in the case, and he gave the poor lady a home. He watched the news- papers of Westmoreland and the surrounding counties, in order to see if any advertisement appeared describing who the lady might be, but no notification of the kind was given. She therefore became domiciled at Mr. Ashton’s, and it was in the month of May, 1830, that she became the mother of twins. She never recovered her senses sufficiently to give the slightest account of herself, but she displayed the most affectionate tenderness toward her poor babes. Mr. Ashton, who was the most benevolent of men, treated her with a kindness which could not have been greater were he her father, and he bestowed his own name on the poor children. GOMIIGDOG Ss) (S©)