d spend a few minutes with Amos."

We hurried to the jail. The sheriff, a stout-built, stern-faced man,
admitted us.

"Can we see the Grimshaw boy?" Mr. Hacket inquired.

"I guess so," he answered as he lazily rose from his chair and took
down a bunch of large keys which had been hanging on the wall. "His
father has just left."

He spoke in a low, solemn tone which impressed me deeply as he put a
lighted candle in the hand of the schoolmaster. He led us through a door
into a narrow corridor. He thrust a big key into the lock of a heavy
iron grating and threw it open and bade us step in. We entered an
ill-smelling, stone-floored room with a number of cells against its rear
wall. He locked the door behind us. I saw a face and figure in the dim
candle-light, behind the grated door of one of these cells. How lonely
and dejected and helpless was the expression of that figure! The sheriff
went to the door and unlocked it.

"Hello, Grimshaw," he said sternly. "Step out here."

It all went to my heart--the manners of the sheriff so like the cold
iron of his keys and doors--the dim candle-light, the pale, frightened
youth who walked toward us. We shook his hand and he said that he was
glad to see us. I saw the scar under his left ear and reaching out upon
his cheek which my stone had made and knew that he bore the mark of
Cain.

He asked if he could see me alone and the sheriff shook his head and
said sternly:

"Against the rules."

"Amos, I've a boy o' my own an' I feel for ye," said the schoolmaster.
"I'm going to come here, now and then, to cheer ye up and bring ye some
books to read. If there's any word of advice I can give ye--let me know.
Have ye a lawyer?"

"There's one coming to-morrow."

"Don't say a word about the case, boy, to any one but your lawyer--mind
that."

We left him and went to our home and beds. I to spend half the night
thinking of my discovery, since which, for some reason, I had no doubt
of the guilt of Amos, but I spoke not of it to any one and the secret
worried me.

Next morning on my way to school I passed a scene more strange and
memorable than any in my long experience. I saw the shabby figure of old
Benjamin Grimshaw walking in the side path. His hands were in his
pockets, his eyes bent upon the ground, his lips moving as if he were in
deep thought. Roving Kate, the ragged, silent woman who, for the fortune
of Amos, had drawn a gibbet, the shadow of which was now upon him,
walke