“Ah, poor boy! And poor girl! He never went back to ‘Lil.’ ‘Lil’ was doomed to look and wonder, and wonder in vain. He waited to see what we were up to. Waited to his own ruin.
“Ah, yes! the fate of that poor, rollicking, good-natured young Joe has set heavier on my conscience than the death of that old scoundrel of a lawyer; for his death was an accident, after all, though, as it occurred while we were trying to get at the wicked will, it was construed murder.
“We waited there for the coach longer than we expected to have done. It was behind time. I asked in a whisper if anybody had a watch.
“Joe said that he had one. He took it out, and I struck a match and looked at the hour. It had gone eleven. Joe started up and said he must go, or ‘Lil’ would think ‘he was never coming home.’ Seems to me we sometimes utter prophecies unawares.
“Joe was really going that time, but almost at the same moment the sound of wheels was heard and the light of the lantern was seen.
“Several of us spoke out at once, telling him to sit down quietly and wait five minutes and then he might go. He dropped down again on his seat beside the road.
“The coach came on very fast, as if to make up for lost time, the light of the lantern shining like two fiery eyes through the darkness of the night in the narrow, wooded road.
“On it came at full speed, the leaders stepping high, until suddenly they struck the barrier of ropes we had stretched across the road, reared, plunged, overturned the coach, extinguished the lanterns, and all was instant confusion, men swearing, women shrieking, horses struggling.
“This was much worse than we had intended. We wished to stop the coach and get the wicked will, not to upset it at the risk of the passengers’ lives.
“We immediately surrounded the wreck.