The reader will remember the burglary at Oakfield farmhouse, described in the opening chapters. He will call to mind the Bristol Badger being shot down by the girl, Jane Ryan, who afterwards gave her evidence at the trial of Gregson, which went far towards ensuring the conviction of the hardened criminal.
Gregson had ruthlessly murdered the girl’s sweetheart some years before the period of the Oakfield House burglary.
Jane Ryan had watched and waited, and she had not done so in vain. An inward monitor had whispered to her that sooner or later she would be instrumentel in hunting down the man who had robbed her of one whom she valued beyond all else in the world.
She felt that her mission was fulfilled after Gregson had expiated his crimes on the public scaffold.
But the death of this wretch did not remove the canker worm which had found its way into the heart of the young girl. It did not blot out from her recollection the terrible and appalling scene of her lover being stabbed to the heart on the lawn of her master’s house.
Jane Ryan became an altered woman; she was, as we have already intimated, deeply embued with superstition, and, moreover, under the impression that her days were numbered. Nothing could dispossess her of this idea.
The last time we took a glance at Jane was in the fourth number of this work, when Richard Ashbrook told her the story of his love, and asked her to become his wife. The interview between the two was of a touching and tender nature. Jane did not positively refuse, but she bade her master seek somebody who was more worthy of him than she was herself. She told him also that she was mourning for one who was dead and gone.
All this was not particularly complimentary to the substantial and honest yeoman, who began to suspect that there was some other rival in the field. He could not for a moment understand that she could be so true and constant to the dead carpenter.
He was as honest as the day, would not wrong man or woman, or indeed any living creature, but his powers of perception were but limited, and Jane was a puzzle to him.
Poor man, his was by no means a solitary case; hundreds and thousands of women, both before and since, have puzzled and perplexed men of far greater intellect than he could boast of.