“Leave me, Superintendent, for a few minutes.  The young man will stay by the door to let you know when I want you,” said that Gouverneur Faulkner to the superintendent, who nodded and left the room as I took a position over beside the heavy iron bars that swung together after him.

“My man,” said the Gouverneur Faulkner in a voice that was so gentle as that which a mother uses to a child in severe illness, “I want you to let me sit down on your cot beside you and talk to you about your trouble.”

“Got nothing to say, parson.  I done it and I want to swing as quick as the law sends me,” answered the poor human from behind his hands without even raising his bowed head.

“I am not a minister, and I’ve come to talk to you because some of your neighbors and friends think that there may be a reason why you should not be hanged for the death of your brother.  It is my duty to help them keep you from the penalty of the law, which you may not deserve even if you desire it.  Can you tell me your story as man to man, with the hope that it will help you to a reprieve?” And as he spoke I observed a tone of command come into the voice of my Gouverneur Faulkner, that was as clear and beautiful as the call of the bugle to men for a battle.

“I done what I had to and I’m ready to die for it.  I’ve got nothing to say,” answered the man with still more of the determination of misery in his voice.  “My neighbors don’t know nothing about it and I don’t want ’em to.  Just let them keep quiet and let it all die when the State swings me.”

“So there is some secret about the matter that you are willing to die to keep, is there?” asked the Gouverneur Faulkner with a quickness of command in his voice.  “What had your brother done to Mary Brown that you killed him for doing?”

“Damn you, what’s that to you?” snarled the man as he sprang up from beside the Gouverneur and leaned, crouched and panting, against the bars of the cage in which the three of us were inclosed.  “Who are you anyway?  My State has said I was to swing for killing him and there’s no more to question about it.”

“I am the Governor of your State,” answered that Gouverneur Faulkner as he rose and stood tall and commanding before the poor human being who was cowering as a dog that had felt the lash of a whip.  “You are my son because you are a son of the State of Harpeth, and as a representative of that State I am going to exercise my guardianship and if possible prevent the State from the crime of taking your life if you do not deserve punishment.”

“I’m condemned by the laws of the State.  You can’t go back on that, Governor or no Governor,” made answer the man, with a panting of misery in his voice.