blue spring sky, looked like holes leading into the everlasting
darkness. In its heavy gloom the mass of masonry towered above the many
smiling homes, but their peaceable inhabitants did not seem to feel
oppressed. They ploughed their fields right up to the bare walls, and
wherever the building was visible, eyes were turned toward it with an
expression that told of the feeling of security that its strong walls
gave.

Like a landmark the huge building towered above everything else. It
might very well have been a temple raised to God's glory by a grateful
humanity, so imposing was it; but if so, it must have been in by-gone
ages, for no dwellings--even for the Almighty--are built nowadays in so
barbaric a style, as if the one object were to keep out light and air!
The massive walls were saturated with the dank darkness within, and the
centuries had weathered their surface and made on it luxuriant cultures
of fungus and mould, and yet they still seemed as if they could stand
for an eternity.

The building was no fortress, however, nor yet a temple whose dim
recesses were the abode of the unknown God. If you went up to the great,
heavy door, which was always closed you could read above the arch the
one word _Prison_ in large letters and below it a simple Latin
verse that with no little pretentiousness proclaimed:

"I am the threshold to all virtue and wisdom;
Justice flourishes solely for my sake."

One day in the middle of spring, the little door in the prison gate
opened, and a tall man stepped out and looked about him with eyes
blinking at the light which fell upon his ashen-white face. His step