Before long, Terry's necessities increased to such a degree, that out of the twenty-four hours of the day and night, more than two-thirds were taken up with the now terrible drudgery by which they were to be supplied. No time had he left for relaxation—hardly for sleep. The thought of to-morrow's toil weighed on his heart, and kept him from rest. He was thoroughly miserable. It was in vain that he called upon death to put an end to him and his wretchedness together; there was no escape for him, even, by that dark road; the fear of a worse hereafter, made imminent by the consciousness of an ill-spent life, kept him from opening the eternal gate himself, to which he was often sorely tempted.
To this great despondency succeeded a course of reckless dissipation and drunkenness. Homeless at last, he wandered from one drinking-shop to another, caring nothing for the lamentable destitution in which his family was steeped; for, as is usually the case, the poorer he became the more his family increased. His deserted wife and starving little ones were forced to obtain a scanty subsistence through the degrading means of beggary. He himself never applied to his fairy resource unless to furnish sufficient of the scorching liquor as would completely drown all sense of circumstance. The slightest approach to sobriety only brought with it reflection, and reflection was madness. So, the very worst amongst the worst, in rags and filth, he staggered about the village, a mark of scorn and contempt to every passer-by, or else prone upon some congenial heap of garbage, slept off the fierceness of his intoxication, to be again renewed the instant consciousness returned.
With that extraordinary tenacity of life indicative of an originally fine constitution, which, added to a naturally powerful frame of body, might have prolonged his years even beyond the allotted space, Terry crept on in this worse than brutal state of existence for many months, until at last, one morning, after a drinking bout of more than usual excess, he was found lying in a stable to which he had crawled for shelter, insensible, and seemingly dead. Perceiving, however, some slight signs of animation yet remaining, his discoverers carried him to the public hospital, for home he had none, and his own misdeeds had estranged the affections, and closed the heart against him of her whose inclination as well as duty would have brought her quickly to his side, had he but regarded and cherished the great God-gift to man—a woman's love, and not cast it aside as a worthless thing.
Tended and cared for, however, although by stranger hands, Terry hovered a long time betwixt life and death, until at length skill and attention triumphed over the assailant, and he was restored to comparative health.
It was then, during the long solitary hours of his convalescence, when the mind was restored to thorough consciousness, but the frame yet too weak for him to quit his bed, that the recollection of his wasted existence stood spectre-like before his mental vision. Home destroyed, wife and children abandoned, friendships sundered, and himself brought to the brink of a dreaded eternity, and all through the means he had so eagerly coveted, and by which he had expected to revel in all the world's joys.
He prayed, in the earnest sincerity of awakened repentance; he prayed for Heaven's assistance to enable him to return to the straight path.
"Oh! if I once get out of this," he cried, while drops of agony bedewed his face, "I'll make amends during the brief time yet left me—I will, I will. Come what may, never again will I be beholdin' to that fearful gift. I now find to my great cost that wealth, not properly come by, is a curse and not a blessing. I'll work, with the help of the good God and his bright angels, an' may-be peace will once more visit my tortured heart."
It was some time before he was able to leave his bed, but when at last he was pronounced convalescent, he quitted the hospital, with the firm determination never again, under any circumstance whatsoever, even to place his hand within the pocket from whence he had hitherto drawn his resources. As a further security against the probability of temptation, he took a strong needle and thread, and sewed up the opening tightly.
"There," he cried, with an accent of relief, "bad luck to the toe of me can get in there now. Oh! how I wish to gracious it had always been so, and I wouldn't be the miserable, homeless, houseless, wife and childless vagabone that I am at this minnit."
As he was debating in his own mind what he should turn to in order to obtain a living—for so great a disgust had he taken to the pipes, to which he attributed all his wretchedness, that he had determined to give up his productive but precarious profession of piper, and abandoning the dissolute crowd who rejoiced in his performances, betake himself to some more useful and reputable employment—it suddenly occurred to him to visit the scene of his fairy adventure, in the hope that he might get rid of the dangerous gift his cupidity had obtained for him.