After the same old round of wasted time, bitter speeches, and scant accomplishment, Congress adjourned, and Davy returned home by the old trail over the mountains. It was in June that he went down the western slopes of the range, through a wild waste of trees and flowers. In the cold coves the laurel still glowed; the lady’s slipper, least of all the orchid sisterhood, swung beside the way; the Indian pine gleamed like a ghostly memory of departed tribes: “The violets were past their prime, Yet their departing breath Was sweeter, in the blast of death, Than all the fragrance of the time.” They were the same birds, it seemed, that flew like bits of flame across his boyhood paths. The bluebird and the yellow warbler still rivalled the scarlet tanager in their splendid liveries, while the thrush, the cat-bird, and the riotous mocking-bird filled the wilderness with a flood of melodies. Past the tumbling cabin at the Limestone’s mouth, past the gentle confluence of the now tame Cove Creek with the Nolichucky, standing at last near the shaky tavern from which his father and mother had gone to their quiet graves, he longed for the sweet perplexities of his childhood as one longs for a drink from the far-away mossy spring where the luscious berries grew, and the arbutus dropped fragrant petals to its edge. He would have rejoiced if the dear ones who had gone to rest might have known of the honors that had come to their barefoot boy. He was nearing fifty years, now, and realized that all men wish to live long lives, yet would not grow old. Already the contest for reëlection had begun in his district. He was confident, with yet a trace of the doubt that always precedes the unattained. He looked in mute farewell at the old scenes, and went his way.