poor
simulacrum of liberty which men of his caste could possess in a
slave-holding community; or least of all, but still something, he might
have kept the boy on the plantation, where the burdens of slavery would
have fallen lightly upon him.

The sheriff recalled his own youth. He had inherited an honored name to
keep untarnished; he had had a future to make; the picture of a fair
young bride had beckoned him on to happiness. The poor wretch now
stretched upon a pallet of straw between the brick walls of the jail had
had none of these things,--no name, no father, no mother--in the true
meaning of motherhood,--and until the past few years no possible future,
and then one vague and shadowy in its outline, and dependent for form
and substance upon the slow solution of a problem in which there were
many unknown quantities.

From what he might have done to what he might yet do was an easy
transition for the awakened conscience of the sheriff. It occurred to
him, purely as a hypothesis, that he might permit his prisoner to
escape; but his oath of office, his duty as sheriff, stood in the way of
such a course, and the sheriff dismissed the idea from his mind. He
could, however, investigate the circumstances of the murder, and move
Heaven and earth to discover the real criminal, for he no longer doubted
the prisoner's innocence; he could employ counsel for the accused, and
perhaps influence public opinion in his favor. An acquittal once
secured, some plan could be devised by which the sheriff might in some
degree atone for his crime against this son of his--against
society--against God.

When the sheriff had reached this conclusion he fell into an unquiet
slumber, from which he awoke late the next morning.

He went over to the jail before breakfast and found the prisoner lying
on his pallet, his face turned to the wall; he did not move when the
sheriff rattled the door.

"Good-morning," said the latter, in a tone intended to waken the
prisoner.

There was no response. The sheriff looked more keenly at the recumbent
figure; there was an unnatural rigidity about its attitude.

He hastily unlocked the door and, entering the cell, bent over the
prostrate form. There was no sound of breathing; he turned the body
over--it was cold and stiff. The prisoner had torn the bandage from his
wound and bled to death during the night. He had evidently been dead
several hours.

A Matter of Principle

I

"What our co