CHAPTER LXV.
THE BENCH OF MAGISTRATES—EXAMINATION OF THE PRISONER.
Mr. Wrench had frequently declared that he sometimes came upon a culprit of whom he was in search when he least expected, and this observation was borne out by the capture of Chudley, which was as unlooked for as it was extraordinary and fortuitous.
He had good reason to congratulate himself upon the issue. After seeing his man safely under lock and key he sent off that night a telegram to Broxbridge, informing Lord Ethalwood of the arrest of the accused.
Early on the following day he took his prisoner per rail to Broxbridge, Nell Fulford and Joe Doughty returning with him.
The prisoner’s first examination before the bench of magistrates created a degree of excitement which was almost without a parallel.
It so chanced that his examination took place on market day.
A country town is only awake once a week, and that is only on market day. At other times houses may be open, shops may be open, and eyes may be open, but houses, shops, and people are fast asleep. The houses resemble mausoleums, the shops are cold and still as pictures, and the citizens who walk about do not seem to know where they are going, what they are doing, or why they are out of doors.
But on market days everybody and everything is alive. The tradesman no longer props his front door and yawns down the empty streets—he is behind the counter bowing and skipping like a French dancing master.
His shop is not filled with impatient customers like a shop in London on Saturday night, but with patient customers like a shop in the country on Saturday morning, for the good old housewives only go shopping once a week, and consider it too serious and sacred a business to be lightly hurried over.