He Only Knew That Until He Had Satisfied The Chief Desire Of His Heart And Had Looked Upon The Original Of The Picture He Had Borne So Long In His Mind He Could Not Rest Nor Make Any Plans For The Future.

He came first to London and found, on examining the map of Hampshire, that the village of Thorpe (I will call it), where he was born, is three miles from the nearest station, in the southern part of the county.

Undoubtedly it was Thorpe; that was one of the few names of places his father had mentioned which remained in his memory always associated with that vivid image of the farm in his mind. To Thorpe he accordingly went - as pretty a rustic village as he had hoped to find it. He took a room at the inn and went out for a long walk - "just to see the place," he said to the landlord. He would make no inquiries; he would find his home for himself; how could he fail to recognize it? But he walked for hours in a widening circle and saw no farm or other house, and no ground that corresponded to the picture in his brain.

Troubled at his failure, he went back and questioned his landlord, and, naturally, was asked for the name of the farm he was seeking. He had forgotten the name - he even doubted that he had ever heard it. But there was his family name to go by - Dyson; did any one remember a farmer Dyson in the village? He was told that it was not an uncommon name in that part of the country. There were no Dysons now in Thorpe, but some fifteen or twenty years ago one of that name had been the tenant of Long Meadow Farm in the parish. The name of the farm was unfamiliar, and when he visited the place he found it was not the one he sought.

It was a grievous disappointment. A new sense of loneliness oppressed him; for that bright image in his mind, with the feeling about his home, had been a secret source of comfort and happiness, and was like a companion, a dear human friend, and now he appeared to be on the point of losing it. Could it be that all that mental picture, with the details that seemed so true to life, was purely imaginary? He could not believe it; the old house had probably been pulled down, the big trees felled, orchard and hedges grabbed up - all the old features obliterated - and the land thrown into some larger neighbouring farm. It was dreadful to think that such devastating changes had been made, but it had certainly existed as he saw it in his mind, and he would inquire of some of the old men in the place, who would perhaps be able to tell him where his home had stood thirty years ago.

At once he set about interviewing all the old men he came upon in his rounds, describing to them the farm tenanted by a man named Dyson about forty years ago, and by and by he got hold of one who knew.

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