The rashness of dealing which
led to this unhappy situation is obvious enough; but as far as I can see
every attempt has been made to avoid wronging anybody."
Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive,
and he turned aside to the window again. A general murmur of agreement
followed the Commissioner's words, and the meeting dispersed. When they
were gone Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him. "'Tisn't
mine by rights," he said to himself. "Why the devil didn't they take
it?--I don't want what don't belong to me!" Moved by a recollection he
took the watch to the maker's just opposite, sold it there and then for
what the tradesman offered, and went with the proceeds to one among
the smaller of his creditors, a cottager of Durnover in straitened
circumstances, to whom he handed the money.
When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and the auctions
were in progress, there was quite a sympathetic reaction in the town,
which till then for some time past had done nothing but condemn him. Now
that Henchard's whole career was pictured distinctly to his neighbours,
and they could see how admirably he had used his one talent of energy
to create a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing--which
was really all he could show when he came to the town as a journeyman
hay-trusser, with his wimble and knife in his basket--they wondered and
regretted his fall.
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