If some six men and two women were willing to swear that they were present to hear, and did hear, Zoe and Fortescue pledge themselves to each other, what could break the evidentiary effect?  Fortescue had paid the expenses of these witnesses to Jacksonville; there was no attempt to hide that.  But why not a formal marriage?  They did not wish it that way.  Was not this marriage as valid as any?  To be sure.  Then the ring!  We made little of a defense.  Mr. Brooks seemed overcome by the emphatic answers.  We lost.  And Fortescue came into my life as a co-tenant, a brother-in-law.

Of course I inherited from Zoe too; but here was Fortescue, sharing in every acre, in every piece of timber in my house.  Only a division by a court could set off to him his share and leave me in individual possession of mine.

He came to Jacksonville to live.  He went into possession of the hut.  Whether I would or no, I had to confer with him about various things, fences, taxes, road service.  He knew nothing of farming.  He often came to ask me what to do, and I could not rebuff him.  He brought strange characters about him, particularly some of the witnesses who had helped him to sustain his claim.  He sent to borrow utensils, household necessities.  He visited with my workmen, wasting their time, putting disturbing ideas into their minds.  He was a consummate nuisance.  And as usual I had much to do and to think of, and I spent lonely evenings when I did not see Reverdy and Sarah or the old fiddler.

It was now left to me to institute a partition suit to divide the land between me and Fortescue.  Mr. Brooks managed this admirably for me.  There was danger that Fortescue might compel a sale of the whole farm and a division of the proceeds.  There was my house, the attractive improvements around it, bright to the envious eye.  Fortescue only had the hut.  But at last acres were set off to him.  I kept my house and the remainder of the land.  And this was ended.

But nevertheless I thought more and more of selling the farm, of moving to Chicago.  Fortescue was an impelling cause to this step.  I should in that event leave Reverdy and Sarah and little Amos.  I should see less of Douglas.  But I began to be desperately annoyed by my situation.  I could not wholly live down the killing of Lamborn.  There was the memory of Zoe.  There was now Fortescue.  And in Chicago there was Abigail, to whom I was writing.  She had become a very close friend.  She was urging me constantly to take up my residence in Chicago.  But I could not leave without selling the land.  I did not wish to sacrifice it.  I did not think it wise to rent it.  Indeed I could not rent it and derive the same income from it that I could by working it myself.  I had not yet found a purchaser who would pay what it was worth.

It was now the autumn of 1840.  Sarah had two children beside little Amos, a boy born in August whom they had named Jonas.  Dorothy had come from Nashville to help Sarah with the heavy household burdens that were now upon her.