However, as I am on my travels, I must endeavour to accommodate myself to circumstances." So I endeavoured to compose myself to sleep; before, however, I could succeed, I heard the sound of stumping steps coming upstairs, and perceived a beam of light through the crevices of the door, and in a moment more the door opened and in came two loutish farming lads whom I had observed below, one of them bearing a rushlight stuck into an old blacking-bottle.

Without saying a word they flung off part of their clothes, and one of them having blown out the rushlight, they both tumbled into bed, and in a moment were snoring most sonorously.
"I am in a short bed," said I, "and have snorers close by me; I fear I shall have a sorry night of it." I determined, however, to adhere to my resolution of making the best of circumstances, and lay perfectly quiet, listening to the snorings as they rose and fell; at last they became more gentle and I fell asleep, notwithstanding my feet were projecting some way from the bed.

I might have lain ten minutes or a quarter of an hour when I suddenly started up in the bed broad awake.

There was a great noise below the window of plunging and struggling interspersed with Welsh oaths.

Then there was a sound as if of a heavy fall, and presently a groan.