Budd Boyd's Triumph; or, The Boy-Firm of Fox Island

by William P. Chipman

These and a hundred other similar exclamations ran along the streets of the village, were repeated in shop and store and house, discussed on the street-corners, and carried out into the surrounding country, within two hours after the sloop had tied up at the public wharf.

And yet very little was really known, for on arriving at the dock Mr. Avery had left the sloop and prisoners in charge of the two lads while he went quietly up the street and sought an interview with Clapp & St. John, the jewelers. The immediate outcome of that interview was that two closely-covered carriages were driven down to the wharf, and the prisoners were hastily put into these and driven rapidly up to the lock-up, where they were quickly incarcerated. Almost as quickly, a huge express wagon went down to the dock, and bags, gripsacks and bundles, containing the robbers' booty and traps, were transferred from the sloop to the waiting vehicle, covered with a large sail-cloth, and driven off to Clapp & St. John's place of business, where they were safely stored. Then warrants were sworn out in rapid succession by Clapp & St. John, by Mr. Johnson, for he had arrived at the village almost as soon as the Sea Witch, and by the lads themselves, against the criminals.

Just what the specific charges were, and how the burglars had been found, was not generally known; but enough had been seen by the inhabitants of that staid community to excite their curiosity, and to set their tongues a-wagging with a velocity that in any other bodily member would have been absolutely dangerous.

So it happened that when the hour of the burglars' examination came a crowd had gathered in the court-room that filled it to its utmost capacity, and a larger crowd was in the court-yard and the adjacent street. Through this assembly the prisoners were with great difficulty taken, and their trial began.

But if the eager audience were expecting any special developments they were doomed to disappointment, for when the warrant charging the prisoners with feloniously entering and robbing Clapp & St. John's store was read, each burglar in his turn waived examination, and was bound over, without bonds, to the higher court.

Something of a surprise swept over the audience, however, when the prisoners were again arraigned and a second warrant was read, charging them with the burglary of Mr. Johnson's house on Hope Island. To this, as in the first instance, the accused responded by waiving an examination, and were again bound over, without bonds, to the next term of the superior court.

Many of the audience evidently thought this ended the judicial proceedings, and they arose to leave the room. The prisoners, too, apparently thought the same, for they turned toward the officers who were guarding them as though expecting to be immediately taken away.

But for the third time they were called to the bar, and a deathlike stillness fell upon the throng as a third warrant was read, charging three of the prisoners with having forcibly entered, with the intent of robbing, the house on Fox Island, on Saturday night, June 17th. Then there was a hurried consultation between the leader of the gang, who had given the name of Brill, and Bagsley and the third man of the party who was accused of this crime, and who answered to the name of Hawkins.

The result of the consultation was that the three men for the third time waived an examination, and for the third time were bound over to the higher court.

As though getting impatient with the whole proceedings, the Justice immediately called the five men to the bar to listen to the reading of a fourth warrant, which charged the entire party with "having taken the sloop Sea Witch, with force of arms, from her lawful owner, and having, with great detriment to said owner's bodily health and disadvantage to his property and business, run off with the same." With hopeless faces and sinking hearts the prisoners no longer waived an examination but pleaded guilty to the charge, and, as on the three former charges, were bound over to the superior court.