“The case drew a large concourse of people to the town, and on the first day of the trial filled the court-room almost to suffocation.
“But great was the surprise of the throng of spectators, when the atrocious criminal was brought in, to see a slight, dark-eyed and curly-haired boy, only eighteen years of age, and looking three years younger, placed in the dock.
“Many whispered comments passed through the crowd, as they gazed at the youthful prisoner. Here he stood lifted up in full view above everybody’s heads, a target for all glances, looking, not frightened, but quiet, subdued, and deeply humiliated by his position; looking anything rather than the brigand and desperado they had expected to see.
“When the preliminaries of the proceedings were over, and the young prisoner was arraigned, he pleaded:
“‘Not guilty.’
“The opening charge of the prosecuting attorney was a tremendous assault upon the accused boy, as if in his slight form was incarnated the spirit of revolt, robbery, murder, treason, and all manner of evil, danger and perdition; and as if the safety of her majesty’s people and dominions required the immediate death by hanging of the prisoner at the bar.
“Poor Joe was not at this time and in this place a hero, it is sad to say! He was a very sensitive and impressible boy, and hearing the prosecuting attorney go on at him at this rate, Joe was—so to speak—psychologized by him and led to look upon himself, the prisoner, as an incarnate fiend, though he had never even suspected the fact before. Now, under this scathing denunciation, the poor wretch bowed his head and looked so guilty that men groaned and women sighed to see such deep depravity in one so young.
“At the end of the prosecutor’s opening charge, that officer called the first witness—Paul Cartright—who, being duly sworn, testified that he was a county constable, and about midnight on the night of the 18th ultimo he had been alarmed by cries for help coming from that section of the high road that passes through Downdingle, and, with others, hurried to the scene, where he found the stage coach that runs between Orton Village and Orton Station overturned and surrounded by half a dozen, or about that number, of masked men. As he and his companions approached, he heard a pistol fired and saw a man fall. The masked men turned and fled into the thickets on each side of the road, and were soon lost to the pursuers, who gave their attention to seeing to the wounded and righting the coach. He, Paul Cartright, had caught one man in the act of flight—had caught him, red-handed, grasping the pistol with which he had just murdered the victim——
“‘Judge! Your honor! oh, your honor! I never fired that pistol! I stooped to see if I could do anything for the fallen man, and seeing he was quite dead, I picked up the pistol from the ground, without knowing what I was doing, and then the constable there took me!’ burst forth poor Joe, before any one could stop him.
“He was sternly called to order by the court, and then instructed in a whisper by his counsel that he was on no account to speak again until he should be spoken to.