The steeped aspect of the
woman as a whole showed her to be no native of the country-side or even
of a country-town.
She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate, and Henchard
looked at her, with a momentary pause, as if she had reminded him
indistinctly of somebody or something which passed from his mind as
quickly as it had come. "Well, and what has she been doing?" he said,
looking down at the charge sheet.
"She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female and
nuisance," whispered Stubberd.
"Where did she do that?" said the other magistrate.
"By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the world!--I caught
her in the act, your worship."
"Stand back then," said Henchard, "and let's hear what you've got to
say."
Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate's clerk dipped his pen, Henchard
being no note-taker himself, and the constable began--
"Hearing a' illegal noise I went down the street at twenty-five minutes
past eleven P.M. on the night of the fifth instinct, Hannah Dominy. When
I had--
"Don't go so fast, Stubberd," said the clerk.
The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk's pen, till the latter
stopped scratching and said, "yes." Stubberd continued: "When I had
proceeded to the spot I saw defendant at another spot, namely, the
gutter.
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