Read it through once

Any doubts which the cobbler opposite may have entertained as to the status of the new arrivals—if, indeed, particulars had not already filtered through from Grazeley—must have been dispersed by the Doctor’s action in at once removing the terror of the Cross. More than this, he had actually suspended the village constable—who was also the blacksmith—for appearing before him with a blood-stained head—an unwarrantable offence against the person of the Chairman of the Reading bench. Three Mile Cross was to be purged; henceforth, it must behave itself, for a real live magistrate had come to live in the midst and, until the villagers found that the Doctor’s bark was worse than his bite they might shake with apprehension—and “they” included the cobbler who stuck closer to his last and was not to be tempted to anything more than a knowing wink when the magistrate and his family came under discussion.