However, the grand jury had to take hold of the matter--it had no choice.It brought in a true bill, and presently the case went to the county court.The trial was a fine sensation.The prisoner was the principal witness for the prosecution.He gave a full account of the assassination; he furnished even the minutest particulars: how he deposited his keg of powder and laid his train--from the house to such-and-such a spot; how George Ronalds and Henry Hart came along just then, smoking, and he borrowed Hart's cigar and fired the train with it, shouting, "Down with all slave-tyrants!" and how Hart and Ronalds made no effort to capture him, but ran away, and had never come forward to testify yet.
But they had to testify now, and they did--and pitiful it was to see how reluctant they were, and how scared.The crowded house listened to Joyce's fearful tale with a profound and breathless interest, and in a deep hush which was not broken till he broke it himself, in concluding, with a roaring repetition of his "Death to all slave-tyrants!"--which came so unexpectedly and so startlingly that it made everyone present catch his breath and gasp.
The trial was put in the paper, with biography and large portrait, with other slanderous and insane pictures, and the edition sold beyond imagination.
The execution of Joyce was a fine and picturesque thing.It drew a vast crowd.Good places in trees and seats on rail fences sold for half a dollar apiece; lemonade and gingerbread-stands had great prosperity.Joyce recited a furious and fantastic and denunciatory speech on the scaffold which had imposing passages of school-boy eloquence in it, and gave him a reputation on the spot as an orator, and his name, later, in the society's records, of the "Martyr Orator." He went to his death breathing slaughter and charging his society to "avenge his murder." If he knew anything of human nature he knew that to plenty of young fellows present in that great crowd he was a grand hero--and enviably situated.
He was hanged.It was a mistake.Within a month from his death the society which he had honored had twenty new members, some of them earnest, determined men.They did not court distinction in the same way, but they celebrated his martyrdom.
The crime which had been obscure and despised had become lofty and glorified.
Such things were happening all over the country.Wild-brained martyrdom was succeeded by uprising and organization.
Then, in natural order, followed riot, insurrection, and the wrack and restitutions of war.It was bound to come, and it would naturally come in that way.It has been the manner of reform since the beginning of the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY
Interlaken, Switzerland, 1891.
It is a good many years since I was in Switzerland last.In that remote time there was only one ladder railway in the country.That state of things is all changed.There isn't a mountain in Switzerland now that hasn't a ladder railroad or two up its back like suspenders; indeed, some mountains are latticed with them, and two years hence all will be.In that day the peasant of the high altitudes will have to carry a lantern when he goes visiting in the night to keep from stumbling over railroads that have been built since his last round.And also in that day, if there shall remain a high-altitude peasant whose potato-patch hasn't a railroad through it, it would make him as conspicuous as William Tell.
However, there are only two best ways to travel through Switzerland.The first best is afloat.The second best is by open two-horse carriage.One can come from Lucerne to Interlaken over the Brunig by ladder railroad in an hour or so now, but you can glide smoothly in a carriage in ten, and have two hours for luncheon at noon--for luncheon, not for rest.There is no fatigue connected with the trip.One arrives fresh in spirit and in person in the evening--no fret in his heart, no grime on his face, no grit in his hair, not a cinder in his eye.This is the right condition of mind and body, the right and due preparation for the solemn event which closed the day--stepping with metaphorically uncovered head into the presence of the most impressive mountain mass that the globe can show--the Jungfrau.
The stranger's first feeling, when suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped in its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment.It is as if heaven's gates had swung open and exposed the throne.
It is peaceful here and pleasant at Interlaken.Nothing going on--at least nothing but brilliant life-giving sunshine.
There are floods and floods of that.One may properly speak of it as "going on," for it is full of the suggestion of activity;the light pours down with energy, with visible enthusiasm.This is a good atmosphere to be in, morally as well as physically.
After trying the political atmosphere of the neighboring monarchies, it is healing and refreshing to breathe air that has known no taint of slavery for six hundred years, and to come among a people whose political history is great and fine, and worthy to be taught in all schools and studied by all races and peoples.For the struggle here throughout the centuries has not been in the interest of any private family, or any church, but in the interest of the whole body of the nation, and for shelter and protection of all forms of belief.This fact is colossal.If one would realize how colossal it is, and of what dignity and majesty, let him contrast it with the purposes and objects of the Crusades, the siege of York, the War of the Roses, and other historic comedies of that sort and size.