When I went back to gaol I found it deserted. Wilkins had sold his farm and disappeared. His wife remained in the hut. Sheriff Cunningham was still away among the Bluenoses, and Silas was 'functus officio', having accomplished a general gaol delivery. He did not pine away on account of the loss of his prisoners, nor grow any thinner--that was impossible. I remained four days longer, expecting something would happen; but nothing did happen, then I left the gaol.
I wrote out two notices informing the public that I was willing to sell my real estate; one of these I pasted up at the Post Office, the other on the bridge over the Aux Plaines River. Next day a German from Chicago agreed to pay the price asked, and we called on Colonel Smith, the Squire. The Colonel filled in a brief form of transfer, witnessed the payment of the money--which was in twenty-dollar gold pieces, and he charged one dollar as his fee. The German would have to pay about 35 cents for its registration. If the deed was lost or stolen, he would insert in a local journal a notice of his intention to apply for a copy, which would make the original of as little value to anybody as a Provincial and Suburban bank note.
In Illinois, transfers of land were registered in each county town. To buy or sell a farm was as easy as horse-stealing, and safer. Usually, no legal help was necessary for either transaction.
By this time California had a rival; gold had been found in Australia. I was fond of gold; I jingled the twenty dollar gold pieces in my pocket, and resolved to look for more at the fountainhead, by way of my native land. A railway from Chicago had just reached Joliet, and had been opened three days before. It was an invitation to start, and I accepted it.
Nobody ever loved his native land better than I do when I am away from it. I can call to mind its innumerable beauties, and in fancy saunter once more through the summer woods, among the bracken, the bluebells, and the foxglove. I can wander by the banks of the Brock, where the sullen trout hide in the clear depths of the pools. I can walk along the path--the path to Paradise--still lined with the blue-eyed speedwell and red campion; I know where the copse is carpeted with the bluebell and ragged robin, where grow the alders, and the hazels rich with brown nuts, the beeches and the oaks; where the flower of the yellow broom blazes like gold in the noontide sun; where the stockdove coos overhead in the ivy; where the kingfisher darts past like a shaft of sapphire, and the water ouzel flies up stream; where the pheasant glides out from his home in the wood to feed on the headland of the wheat field; where the partridge broods in the dust with her young; where the green lane is bordered by the guelder-rose or wayfaring tree, the raspberry, strawberry, and cherry, the wild garlic of starlike flowers, the woodruff, fragrant as new-mown hay; the yellow pimpernel on the hedge side. I see in the fields and meadows the bird's foot trefoil, the oxeye daisy, the lady smocks, sweet hemlock, butterbur, the stitchwort, and the orchis, the "long purpled" of Shakespeare. By the margin of the pond the yellow iris hangs out its golden banners over which the dragon fly skims. The hedgerows are gay with the full-blown dog-roses, the bells of the bilberries droop down along the wood-side, and the red-hipped bumble bees hum over them. Out of the woodland and up Snaperake Lane I rise to the moorland, and then the sea coast comes in sight, and the longing to know what lies beyond it.
I have been twice to see what lies beyond it, and when I return once more my own land does not know me. There is another sea coast in sight now, and when I sail away from it I hope to land on some one of the Isles of the Blest.
I called on my oldest living love; she looked, I thought, even younger than when we last parted. She was sitting before the fire alone, pale and calm, but she gave me no greeting; she had forgotten me. I took a chair, sat down beside her, and waited. A strange lass with a fair face and strong bare arms came in and stared at me steadily for a minute or two, but went away without saying a word. I looked around the old house room that I knew so well, with its floor of flags from Buckley Delph, scoured white with sandstone. There stood, large and solid, the mealark of black oak, with the date, 1644, carved just below the heavy lid, more than 200 years old, and as sound as ever. The sloping mirror over the chest of drawers was still supported by the four seasons, one at each corner. Above it was Queen Caroline, with the crown on her head, and the sceptre in her hand, seated in a magnificent Roman chariot, drawn by the lion and the unicorn. That team had tortured my young soul for years. I could never understand why that savage lion had not long ago devoured both the Queen and the unicorn.
My old love was looking at me, and at last she put one hand on my knee, and said:
"It's George."
"Yes," I said, "it's George."