The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall below
Lucetta's house, to attend Petty Sessions, being still a
magistrate for the year by virtue of his late position as
Mayor. In passing he looked up at her windows, but nothing
of her was to be seen.
Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seem to be
an even greater incongruity than Shallow and Silence
themselves. But his rough and ready perceptions, his
sledge-hammer directness, had often served him better than
nice legal knowledge in despatching such simple business as
fell to his hands in this Court. To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the
Mayor for the year, being absent, the corn-merchant took the
big chair, his eyes still abstractedly stretching out of the
window to the ashlar front of High-Place Hall.
There was one case
