We went round to the east side of the gaol, and there was a hole about two feet deep, and just wide enough to let a man through. The ground underneath the wall was rocky, but the two prisoners had been industrious, had picked a hole under the wall and had gone through.
"Where's the Sheriff?" I asked. "Won't Mr. Cunningham go after the men?"
"He's away at Bourbonnais' Grove, about suthin' or other, among the Bluenoses; can't say when he'll be back; it don't matter anyhow. He might just as well try to go to hell backwards as catch them two horse thieves now."
Silas had still two other prisoners under his care, and he let them go outside as usual to enjoy the fresh air. They had both been committed for murder, but their crime was reckoned a respectable one compared to the mean one of horse stealing, so Silas gave them honourable treatment.
One of the prisoners was a widow lady who had killed another lady with an axe, at a hut near the canal on the road to Lockport. She seemed crazy, and when outside the gaol walked here and there in a helpless kind of way, muttering to herself; but sometimes an idea seemed to strike her that she had something to do Lockport way, and she started in that direction, forgetting very likely that she had done it already; but whenever Silas called her back, she returned without giving any trouble. One day, however, when Silas was asleep she went clean out of sight, and I did not see her any more. The Sheriff was still absent among the Bluenoses.
The fourth prisoner was an Englishman named Wilkins who owned a farm on the prairie, in the direction of Bourbonnais' Grove. A few weeks before, returning home from Joliet with his waggon and team of horses, he halted for a short time at a distillery, situated at the foot of the low bluff which bounded the bottom, through which ran the Aux Plaines River. It was a place at which the farmers often called to discuss politics, the prices of produce, and other matters, and also, if so disposed, to take in a supply of liquor. The corn whisky of Illinois was an article of commerce which found its way to many markets. Although it was sold at a low price at home, it became much more valuable after it had been exported to England or France, and had undergone scientific treatment by men of ability. The corn used in its manufacture was exceedingly cheap, as may be imagined when corn-fed pork was, in the winter of '49, offered for sale in Joliet at one cent per pound. After the poison of the prairies had been exported to Europe, a new flavour was imparted to it, and it became Cognac, or the best Irish or Scotch whisky.
Wilkins halted his team and went into the whisky-mill, where the owner, Robinson, was throwing charcoal into the furnace under his boiler with a long-handled shovel. He was an enterprising Englishman who was wooing the smiles of fortune with better prospects of success than the slow, hard-working farmer. I had seen him first in West Joliet in '49, when he was travelling around buying corn for his distillery. He was a handsome man, about thirty years of age, five feet ten inches in height, had been well educated, was quite able to hold his own among the men of the West, and accommodated himself to their manners and habits.
There were three other farmers present, and their talk drifted from one thing to another until it at last settled on the question of the relative advantages of life in England and the States. Robinson took the part of England, Wilkins stuck to the States; he said:
"A poor man has no chance at home; he is kept down by landlords, and can never get a farm of his own. In Illinois I am a free man, and have no one to lord it over me. If I had lived and slaved in England for a hundred years I should never have been any better off, and now I have a farm as good as any in Will County, and am just as good a man as e'er another in it."
Now Wilkins was only a small man, shorter by four inches than Robinson, who towered above him, and at once resented the claim to equality. He said: