Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
if I had been partially stunned, and now, in an interval
of consciousness, was about to have the fearful blow,
which had prostrated me, repeated. There was a craving
for sleep, sleep, blessed sleep! but my eyelids were as if
they could not close. Every object around me I beheld
with startling distinctness, and my hearing became un¬
naturally acute. Then, to the ringing and roaring in my
ears, would suddenly succeed a silence, so awful, that
only the stillness of the grave might be-compared with it.
At other times strange voices would whisper unintel¬
ligible words, and the slightest noise would make me
start like a guilty thing. But the horrible burning thirst
was insupportable, and to quench it, and induce sleep, I
clutched again and again the rum-bottle,—hugged my
enemy,—and poured the infernal fluid down my parched
throat. But it was of no use—none. I could not sleep.
Then I bethought me of tobacco; and, staggering from
my bed to a shelf near, with great difficulty, I managed
to procure a pipe and some matches. I could not stand
to light the latter, so I lay again on the bed, and scraped
one on the wall. I began to smoke, and the narcotic leaf pro¬
duced a stupefaction. I dozed a little, but, feeling a warmth
on my face, I awoke, and discovered my pillow to be on
fire! I had dropped a lighted match on the bed. By a
desperate effort I threw the pillow on the floor, and, too
exhausted to feel annoyed by the burning feathers, I sank
again into a state of somnolency.
How long I lay, I do not exactly know; but I was
roused from my lethargy by the neighbours, who, alarmed
by a smell of fire, came to my room to ascertain the cause.
When they took me from my bed, the under part of the
straw, with which it was stuffed, was smouldering, and,
in a quarter of an hour more, must have burst into a
flame. Had such been the ease how horrible would have