I was very much tired and disposed to sleep, which, my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail of a man-of-war.
I slept about two hours, and dreamed I was at home with my wife and children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked and found myself alone in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet wide, and above two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide.

My mistress was gone about her household affairs, and had locked me in.

The bed was eight yards from the floor.
[Illustration: "I ...

DREW MY HANGER TO DEFEND MYSELF." P.18.] Presently two rats crept up the curtains, and ran smelling backwards and forwards on my bed.

One of them came almost up to my face; whereupon I rose in a fright, and drew out my hanger to defend myself.