some
business with the wine-merchant or the saddler. There really is not the
least hurry. The Clerk stands in the inn porch calmly enjoying the
September sunshine, and chatting with the landlord. Two or three more
magistrates drive up; presently the chairman strolls over on foot from
his house, which is almost in the town, to the inn, and joins in the
pleasant gossip going on there, of course in a private apartment.

Up in the justice-room the seedy Clerk's clerk is leaning out of the
window and conversing with a man below who has come along with a
barrow-load of vegetables from his allotment. Some boys are spinning
tops under the pillars. On the stone steps that lead up to the hall a
young mother sits nursing her infant; she is waiting to 'swear' the
child. In the room itself several gipsy-looking men and women lounge in
a corner. At one end is a broad table and some comfortable chairs behind
it. In front of each chair, on the table, two sheets of clean foolscap
have been placed on a sheet of blotting-paper. These and a variety of
printed forms were taken from the clumsy box that is now open.

At last there is a slight stir as a group is seen to emerge from the
inn, and the magistrates take their seats. An elderly man who sits by
the chair cocks his felt hat on the back of his head: the clerical
magistrate very tenderly places his beaver in safety on the broad
mantelpiece, that no irreverent sleeve may ruffle its gloss: several
others who rarely do more than nod assent range themselves on the
flanks; one younger man who looks as if he understood horses pulls out
his toothpick. The chairman, stout and gouty, seizes a quill and sternly
looks over the list of cases.

Half a dozen summonses for non-payment of rates come first; then a
dispute between a farmer and his man. After this the young mother
'swears' her child; and, indeed, there is some very hard swearing here
on both sides. A wrangle between two women--neighbours--who accuse each
other of assault, and scream and chatter their loudest, comes next.
Before they decide it, the Bench retire, and are absent a long time.

By degrees a buzz arises, till the justice-room is as noisy as a market.
Suddenly the door of the private room opens, and the Clerk comes out;
instantly the buzz subsides, and in the silence those who are nearest
catch something about the odds and the St. Leger, and an anything but
magisterial roar of laughter. The chairman appears, rigidly compressi