Night and day the boy's mother begged the old man to try for a pardon, but Mike knew it was not worth a trial. The Governor was an old man and a strong man, and not one to forgive an injury done to the State or to himself. He had never been known to forget a wrong, or to leave a debt unpaid.
He was a just man, as the ancient Jews were just. It was this that had made him Governor; his righteousness and fearlessness were greater than cliques and bosses.
Old Mrs. Murphy, however, was only a woman, and the boy was her boy, and she pardoned him. She knew he was innocent, for he was her boy. Mike refused a thousand times to ask the Governor for a pardon, but as Mrs. Murphy was the boy's mother and had a valiant tongue, the old man changed his mind. One day he put on his old silk hat, and with Father Maurice, the good gray priest, went up to the capital.
A strange pair they were to sit in the Governor's richly furnished reception room—Mike with his smoothly shaven face, red as the sunset, his snowy eye brows, his white flecked red hair, and the shiny black of his baggy Sunday suit; Father Maurice with his long gray beard that had been his before the days of the smoothly shaven priests, his kindly eyes, and the jolly rotundity of his well fed stomach. The father's gentle heart was hopeful, but Mike sat sadly with his eyes on the toe of his boot, for he knew the errand was folly; not alone because the Governor had never pardoned a condemned man, but because it was he, Mike Murphy, who came.
He remembered an incident of his boyhood, and he frowned as he recalled it. Think of it! He, Mike Murphy, had bullied the Governor—had drubbed him and chased him and worried the life out of him. That was why he had told the old woman it was no use to try it.
Who was he to come asking pardons when, years ago, he had done his best to make life miserable for the quaking schoolboy who was now the stern faced Governor—the Governor who never forgot or forgave, or left a debt unpaid?
II.
When the Governor entered the reception room he came in unexpectedly, as Father Maurice was leaning forward with one of Mike's red hands clasped in his two white ones. Mike was wiping his eyes with his coat sleeve.