His son sought to cheer him a little ere rising to return to the lodging for the present assigned them by the ship-captain.
"Nay," replied the old man, "I shall get no fitter rest than here by the mounds." But from this true "Potter's Field," the boy at length drew him away; and encouraged next morning by a voluntary purse made up among the reassembled passengers, father and son started by stage for the country of the Housatonie.

But the exile's presence in these old mountain townships proved less a return than a resurrection.

At first, none knew him, nor could recall having heard of him.

Ere long it was found, that more than thirty years previous, the last known survivor of his family in that region, a bachelor, following the example of three-fourths of his neighbors, had sold out and removed to a distant country in the west; where exactly, none could say.
He sought to get a glimpse of his father's homestead.

But it had been burnt down long ago.