THE TRIAL
“And so the time passed to the day on which the judges entered the town
to hold the assizes.
“The docket was an unusually full one for this term, and many cases had
to be tried before that of John Weston, charged with the murder of John
Ketcham, was called.
“The remarkable feature in this case was the fact that it involved the
first case of highway robbery that had occurred in that neighborhood for
more than half a century, and seemed the revival of a phase of crime
that had passed into history and should have been impossible in this
age.
“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.
“Joe, crestfallen and despairing, subsided into silence.
“‘Do you see the man whom you took red-handed, as you say, standing
pistol in hand over his slain victim?’ inquired the prosecutor.
“‘Yes, sir; that is the man,’ replied the witness, pointing to the young
prisoner in the dock.
“Joe shook his head in desperation, but said never a word.
“The pistol was then produced, and identified by the witness as the one
he had taken from the prisoner at the bar.
“A ball was produced, and identified by the next witness, Dr. Yorke, who
performed the autopsy on the deceased lawyer, as the bullet extracted
from the dead body. It was found to fit the empty chamber of the
revolver, and to correspond perfectly with the other bullets with which
it had been loaded.
“Pistol and bullets were handed to the jury, and passed from man to
man—conclusive evidence of the guilt of the prisoner at the bar.
“Several other witnesses were examined, all of whom corroborated the
testimony of the first one.
“Joe thought his case was gone, and he felt thankful that Lil was not
there to hear evidence that might even have shaken her faith in him,
since it had destroyed his faith in himself.
“But at length the case for the prosecution was closed, and the court
took a recess.
“Then Mr. Rocke came around to the dock, and sat down and talked with
his client, and encouraged him until his fainting self-esteem was in
some degree restored.
“After recess the court reassembled, and the defence was opened in a
most eloquent speech, by Mr. Rocke.
“He told the whole story of ‘John Weston’s’ purely accidental connection
with the party of young roughs who had stopped the stage coach, not
either with any intention of mail robbery, murder or any other great
violence, but merely to get possession of a certain document held by the
deceased lawyer.
“He dwelt upon the young prisoner’s total ignorance of their plans and
incomplicity with their offence.
“He described the purely accidental shooting of the lawyer by the pistol
held in the deceased’s own hand, leveled at one of the assailants, and
knocked up by the assailant in self-defence, so that it went off,
sending a bullet under the chin, and upward and backward through the
brain. He bade them see how easy, natural and inevitable such an
accident must be.
“He described the humane impulse of the boy spectator, now the unhappy
young prisoner at the bar. He told how he had seen the catastrophe; how
he had run to the rescue, had bent over the fallen man, but finding him
dead, had picked up the pistol, and without an idea of escaping, as the
guilty ones had done, stood there gazing at the dead in a sort of panic,
no doubt, until he was taken into custody by the constable.
“Was this, he asked, the conduct of a guilty man? The guilty had
fled—had finally escaped—had never been recaptured. But had this young
man ever even attempted to fly?
“He would bring witnesses to prove the unblemished good character of his
client, and to prove that on the fatal night of the robbery and the
murder he, the accused, so far from having any share in the conspiracy
to stop the mail coach, had returned to his home to spend the evening
with his newly married wife, and had gone again only at the request of
his landlady, and on a neighborly errand. It was after having executed
this errand, and while he was on his way home, that he chanced most
unhappily to fall in with the party of young ruffians who stopped the
coach. He had no hand in their offence, and was taken while trying to
render assistance to the victim.
“Then Counsellor Rocke called Joseph Wyvil, of Stockton.
“Joseph Wyvil, who had just come into court, being sworn, testified that
he knew the prisoner at the bar, and had known him since he, the
prisoner, was four years of age—that is, for fourteen years—and that
most intimately at home and at school, and had never known him to be
untruthful, dishonest or cruel in all that time, and could not possibly
believe him to be capable of the crime for which he was there arraigned.
“Wyvil was cross-examined by the prosecutor as to whether he really
never knew the prisoner to vary in the least from the truth, or to take
liberties with the sweetmeats, or to tease cats, or to do any little
thing that might trench upon the borders of falsehood, theft or cruelty.
“But all this only brought out the most positive declaration of the
witness that he had not.
“Joseph Wyvil was then allowed to sit down, and Belinda Claxton was
called to the stand.
“Being sworn, this witness testified that she knew the prisoner at the
bar, who had been her lodger for two months up to the time of his
arrest; that on the night of the highway robbery and murder he had come
home to tea, and had arranged to spend the evening with his wife, and
herself and her husband, to play a game of whist, but that news had come
of the old squire’s sudden death, and that she had persuaded him, the
prisoner, to walk over to the Hall and see if the report was true. That
he went off, promising to be back in half an hour, or in an hour at
most. When he failed to come she only thought that he had been detained
at the Hall.
“Mrs. Claxton was also cross-examined as to when this whist party had
been arranged. She answered that it had been settled before the prisoner
had gone out to the post-office that afternoon, that he was to return to
an early tea, and play whist all the evening.
“Mrs. Claxton was allowed to retire.
“John Claxton, husband of the last witness, was called, and corroborated
her testimony in every item.
“Then the prosecutor got up to deliver the closing address to the jury.
He made very light of the testimony for the defence, showing, or
attempting to show, the jury that it really proved nothing, and had so
little to do with the charge against the prisoner that it might well
have been ruled out as irrelevant, impertinent and vexatious. He
exhorted the jurors to do their stern duty as British jurors to punish
red-handed crime; to—and so forth, and so forth.
“The judge arose to make the final charge. It was all against the
prisoner. His honor considered the evidence for the prosecution as quite
conclusive; the evidence advanced by the defence as weak and
inconsequential. And charged the jury to bring in a verdict in
accordance with the facts proven.
“Criminal trials of this sort are soon concluded in England. They do not
waste so much time or spend so much money as we do over them.
“The jury retired to their room for half an hour, during which poor Joe
waited in an agony of suspense as great as human nature can endure and
live—in an agony that seemed to stretch that half hour into an eternity
of suffering; and then the jury filed in and rendered their verdict:
“‘GUILTY.’
“Joe sprang up and fell back on his seat as if he had been shot.
“‘It will be a murder, you know, Mr. Rocke. Poor Lil!’ he cried to his
counsel, who came to his side.
“He was quickly called to order and directed to stand up.
“With as strong an effort at self-control as his boyish soul was capable
of making, he obeyed and faced the court.
“He was then asked whether he had anything to say why sentence of death
should not be pronounced upon him.
“He answered that he had a great deal to say. And then in eager,
vehement, impassioned, yet most respectful language, he asseverated his
innocence, and told again the often repeated true story of his
connection with the young men who had stopped the stage coach.
“The court heard him patiently, and then, when he had ceased to speak,
the judge put on the black cap and proceeded to sentence the boy.
“He told him the enormity of the crime of which he had been guilty, the
fairness of the trial he had stood, the ability with which he had been
defended, the justice of the verdict, the justice also of his sentence,
the hopelessness of any thought of mercy in this world, the necessity of
seeking mercy from a higher tribunal, and finally he pronounced the
ghastly sentence of the law, and ended with the prayer that the Lord
might have mercy on his soul!
“‘Poor Lil!’ was all the boy said, as the bailiffs led him away.
“And the court was adjourned.