God only
knows what might have been the final result had not assistance soon come in
the person of the owner of the house. He called for help, and as soon as it
arrived we were placed in our sleigh, and by a kind of instinct drove to
Fairview. It was dark by the time we got into Fairview, but we contrived
to get our horse within the stable and that unfortunate hound into a
corn-crib, in which durance he howled so vigorously that the wild winds
which whistled and shrieked around the barn could not be heard for him. His
complaining lasted all night, and I do not think any one within a mile
of the crib slept that night, my friend and myself excepted. Ay, we
slept--slept as I have so often slept since--a slumber as deep and
oblivious as death--a drunken sleep, from which we awoke to suffer hell's
tortures so justly merited by our conduct. I awoke with a throbbing, aching
heart, but by slow degrees did I become conscious that I had been somewhere
in a sleigh and done something either very desperate or very foolish, or
both. At first my mind was so muddled, so beclouded with the fumes of
the infernal "bitters" and whisky that I thought I had burned a city.
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