And yet he mellowed some and even laughed.
A prison visitor was wrestling with him, no doubt meaning well, but not having much effect on so hard a case.
She tried to make his mind revert to his childhood, when he said his prayers at his mother's knee, and all that sort of thing, you know.
"My poor fellow," I heard her say, "when you contemplate your approaching doom, does not your memory revert longingly to those innocent days, and would you not enjoy once more those childish sports of the long ago?"
"Well," said Sikes, reflecting, as though his mind had indeed traveled far back into the dim past, "sure, there's one thing I'd like mighty well to do, and that is skip the rope."
My legal friend really made a powerful plea in the Sikes case, and I thought he would win out.
But there must have been one jury-man for conviction, who finally brought the other eleven obstinate men to his way of thinking.
Why, I actually felt the tears in my eyes and the accused began to look like an angel, whereas a short time before I had thought him a ruffian.
The lawyer's boy was present too, and when he went home he gave a report of the proceedings.