“My God, boy!” exclaimed that Gouverneur Faulkner as he caught the knife from the floor where it had fallen from the hand of the poor man who had sunk down on the cot, trembling and panting. “Two inches to the left and a little more force and the knife would have stuck in your heart.”
“Is it not better my heart than yours, my great Gouverneur Faulkner? And behold it is the heart of neither and only a small scratch upon my humble arm, which will not even prevent the driving of that new Cherry car,” I answered him as I put that arm behind me and pressed it close in its sleeve of brown cheviot so that there would be no drippings of blood.
“I didn’t go to hurt the young gentleman nor you either, Governor,” said the man from the cot as he sobbed and buried his head in his arms. “I was always a good man and now I—”
“Don’t say another word, Timms,” interrupted my Gouverneur Faulkner in a voice that was as gentle as that father of State which he had said himself to be to Timms. “Nobody will know of this, for your sake. I was—was baiting you. I know what I want to know now and you’ll not hang on the sixteenth. The State will try you again. Call the superintendent, Robert.”
“Don’t say nothing to hurt Mary, Governor. Jest let me hang and I won’t never care what—” the poor human began to plead.
“I’ll look after Mary—and you too, Timms. I’ll see to it that—” my Gouverneur Faulkner was answering the trembling plea for his mercy when the superintendent came in and unlocked the cage.
“Don’t let him know of the—accident, youngster,” whispered the Gouverneur Faulkner to me, and in a very few minutes we were out of that prison into the Cherry car, and whirling with great rapidity down the country road with its tall trees upon both sides.
“Stop, Robert,” commanded His Excellency as we came under a large group of very old trees which made a thick shelter of their green leaves as they leaned together over the stone wall that bordered the side of the road. “Now let me see just what did happen to that arm which came between poor Timms’ sharpened case knife and my life. We are out of sight of the prison now. It would have all been up with Timms if that attack upon me had been discovered. Your pluck will have saved Timms, if he’s saved, as well as your Governor. Here, turn towards me and let me see that arm.” And as he spoke, my Gouverneur Faulkner put his arm across my shoulder and turned me towards him so that he could put his right hand on the sleeve of that cheviot bag in which was a long slash from the knife and which was now wet with my blood.
“I very much fear my beloved brown cheviot, which I have worn only a few times, is now dead; and how will I find another for my need!” I exclaimed with a great alarm when I saw that that knife had thus devastated my good clothing of which I had not many and for the procuring of which I was many thousand miles from my good friend and tailor in New York. If I sought another suit in the city of Hayesville might there not be dangers of discoveries in the adjustment thereof? “Is it not a vexation?” I asked as the Gouverneur Faulkner attempted to push back that murdered sleeve from my forearm.
“In the language of my friend Buzz, you are one sport, Robert. Shell out of that coat immediately. I want to see just how much of a scratch that is and I can’t get the sleeve up high enough,” commanded my Gouverneur Faulkner. The tone of his voice was the same he had used to me in commanding that I take his mail to his nice lady stenographer, but his face was very white and his hand that he laid upon the collar of my coat for assisting me to lay it aside trembled with a great degree of violence.