He was too agitated at the time to notice whether the bushrangers were men or boys.

It was he who overtook the three young men, but they could not be induced to turn back till the boy Mathieson came up with them and declared the highwaymen to be a mob of boys.
Hogan was equally positive about the firearms, and thought he heard the bullets whistling past his ears, but could not swear to it.

At this stage the defendants' lawyer, who had been harrowing the witnesses with many questions and heaping ridicule upon their devoted heads, called for the prisoners' arms to be produced, and the sight of the toy pistols with their mutton-boned barrels provoked yells of laughter in the court, which were presently echoed in the streets.
But it was not till brawny Mrs.Cox took her stand in the witness-box that the absurdity of the Meroury's story and the charge was exposed fully to a delighted audience.

Mrs.Cox marched into the box in an aggressive way, saluted the book with an emphatic and explosive kiss, and then stood erect, square-shouldered and defiant, giving the court and all concerned to understand by her attitude that it must not be imagined any advantage could be taken of her.

She told her story in a bluff dogmatic way.