A Rolling Stone by B. M. Croker

A long time had elapsed since a tragedy or an inquest had taken place in Ottinge; the last had occurred twenty years previously, when Joe Watkins (a village name), being jealous, had thrown his wife down a well, and, despite her prayers, entreaties, and screams, had left her to drown, for which crime he had paid the extreme penalty of the law in Brodfield Gaol.

A suicide was something entirely foreign to the character of the community, and the topic was exhaustively debated in the Drum. Joe Thunder gave it as _his_ opinion that the remains of Captain Ramsay -- speaking from recollection -- would be buried with a stake at a cross-roads -- probably at Crampton, being nearest. The village was stirred out of its normal lethargy and, secretly, rather proud of being the scene of a sensation, and newspaper paragraphs.