Another service that the attorney did me, according
to the jailer, through whom I discovered
all these things, was to despatch a messenger to
my friends in Philadelphia, with the news of my
insanity and imprisonment, and a request that they
should send proper persons to take charge of me
after being liberated: and I was roused the following
morning by the appearance of some half a
dozen kinsmen who had come to the village for
that purpose, fully persuaded that they should find
me a raging lunatic.

But the jailer's information had set me to reflecting
upon my difficulties, all of which, as I clearly
perceived, were owing to my indiscretion in attempting
to keep up the character of Sheppard
Lee while in another man's body. I saw the
necessity I was now placed under to be Mr. John
H. Higginson, and nobody else, for the future;
and so I resolved to be—for I did not like the idea
of being clapped into a mad-house by my new
friends.

Yet they took me so much by surprise that I
was guilty of some few inconsistencies; for it was

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not immediately that I felt myself at case in my
new character.

The truth is, my situation was peculiar and
embarrassing. With the body of Mr. Higginson,
I had acquired all his distinctive peculiarities,
as I mentioned before. But many of these were
in a manner stupified within me, and required to
be renewed, or resuscitated, by processes of association.
I was like a man who has been roused
from a lethargy, which had destroyed or obscured
his memory, though not his instincts; and who
betrays complete ignorance of past events, and
forgetfulness of old friends, until some accidental
circumstance—a casual reference to some past
event, the tone of a voice, or other such cause—
recalls him, it may be, to sudden and complete,
though usually imperfect, consciousness.

Thus, when I was roused up in the morning,
and beheld a good-looking personage of about my
own years shaking me by the shoulder, I regarded
him only as some impertinent stranger intruding
upon my privacy, saluted him with divers epithets
expressive of rage and indignation, and concluded
by asking him “who the devil he was?”

“What! I?” said he, with the most doleful
visage in the world; “why, Timothy—that is,
Tim Doolittle, your brother-in-law—Don't you
know me?”

And “Don't you know me? and me? and me?
your cousin, Tom This, and your old friend, Dick
That?” cried they all, with horrible long faces; the

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oddity of which after a while set me a laughing,
especially when I came to recollect them all, as I
did by-and-by when they had pronounced their
names; for at each name it seemed to me as if a
film fell from my eyes, and some spirit within
awakened me to a vague recollection of the person
to whom it belonged. In a word, I became
aware that I was surrounded by a knot of my oldest
and best friends, all of them excellent jolly
dogs and good fellows, who were come to escort
me home, and assured me that I was no longer a
prisoner.

I shook them all by the hand, and contrasting
for a moment in my mind the melancholy condition
in which I had lived as Sheppard Lee, with
my present glorious state, surrounded by friends,
and conscious of possessing lands, houses, stocks,
Schuylkill coal-mines, and the Lord knows what
other goods beside, I fell into a rapture, danced
about my cell, and hugged every person present,
as well as the jailer, and my old friend Darling, the
attorney, who happened at that moment to enter.

“Bravo!” said Tim Doolittle; “now you're the
true Jack Higginson again; and I don't believe
you are mad a bit.”

“Mad!” said I, thinking it needful to explain
away that imputation, “No, and I never was. I
tumbled over an old rotten fence, and hurt my
head, which was, in consequence, in a whiz all
day yesterday; but now it is clear enough. I
think I said some silly things about one thing and
another; but that's neither here nor there.”

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“Ah!” said Tim Doolittle, touching his forehead
and looking as grave as a bullfrog, “it's well
it's no worse; for I always thought you had a
turn for apoplexy. But I'm glad you are so well;
it will be good news for poor Margaret.”

“Margaret! who the deuse is she?” said I,
feeling quite strange at the name.

“Why, my poor sister, your wife, to be sure,”
said he.

My wife!!! I recollected that I had a wife;
but the recollection made me feel, I knew not exactly
why, as if I had been suddenly soused into
cold water. It was a highly uncomfortable idea,
and accordingly I hastened to get rid of it.

“Let us leave this confounded place,” I said;
and we left the prison.

The prospect of a fine sunshiny day infused animation
into my mind, which was vastly increased
when I stepped into a splendid new barouche, with
a pair of bay horses worth a thousand dollars—for
so much Tim gave me to understand I—that is to
say, my prototype—had given for them scarce
a month before—the whole establishment being
therefore my own! “What a happy man am I!
Ah! poor miserable Sheppard Lee! Farewell
now to poverty! farewell to discontent!”

Such were my secret ejaculations as we set out
in my splendid barouche, followed by a train of gigs
and carriages that contained my friends. I esteemed
myself the happiest man in the world;
and I gave my last sigh to the memory of Sheppard
Lee.

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