described, but the
people, the angels and the devils were alike the phantasmagoria of my
diseased mind. For one week after the night last mentioned, I had no use of
either arm. I had so frozen my feet that I could not put on my boots. Mr.
Hinchman kindly loaned me a pair that I succeeded, although with great
pain, in drawing on, for they were three sizes larger than I was in the
habit of wearing. The devils were still with me, but I had moments of
reason when I could banish them from my mind. On our way to town they rode
on top of the buggy and clung to the spokes of the wheels, and whirled over
and over with dizzy revolutions. How they fought, and cursed, and shrieked!
When I got to my room it was the same, and for days I was surrounded the
greater part of the time with demons as numberless as those seen in the
fancy of the mighty poet of a Lost Paradise marshaled under the infernal
ensign of Lucifer on the fiery and blazing plains of hell! For more than
one month after the madness left me I was afraid to sleep in a room alone,
and the least sound would fill me with fear. I ran when none pursued, and
hid when no one was in search of me. My sleep was fitful and full of
terrible dreams, and my days were days of unrest and anguish unspeakable.

CHAPTER VIII.

Wretchedness and degradation--Clothes, credit, and reputation all lost--The
prodigal's return to his father's house--Familiar scenes--The beauty of
nature--My lack of feeling--A wild horse--I ride him to Raleigh and get
drunk--A mixture of vile poison--My ride and fall--The broken stirrups--My
father's search--I get home once more--Depart the same day on the wild
horse--A week at Lewisville--Sick--Yearnings for sympathy.

My condition now grew worse from day to day. I descended step by step
to the lowest depths of wretchedness and degradation. Often my only
sleeping-place was the pavement, or a stairway, or a hall leading to some
office. I lost my clothes, pawning most of them to the rum-sellers, until I
was unfit to be seen, so few and dirty and ragged were the garments which I
could still call my own. In ten years I have lost, given away, and pawned
over fifty suits of clothes. Within the three years just past I have had
six overcoats that went the way of my reputation and peace of mind.

I left Rushville at the time of which I am writing, but not until it was
out of my power to either buy or beg a drop of liquor--not until my
reputation was destroyed and