He shook his head, and wondered
how I could call them fine arts--hoped I did not mean to convince
him by any ocular demonstration, and at length reluctantly
condescended to sleep with me, and let the lass and wife sleep
together for one night. I believe he would have declined it had it
not been some hints from his wife, stating that it was a good
arrangement, by which I understood there were only two beds in
the house, and that when I was preferred to the lass's bed, she had
one to shift for.
The landlord and I accordingly retired to our homely bed, and
conversed for some time about indifferent matters, till he fell
sound asleep. Not so with me: I had that within which would not
suffer me to close my eyes; and, about the dead of night, I again
heard the same noises and contention begin outside the house as I
had heard the night before; and again I heard it was about a
sovereign and peculiar right in me. At one time the noise was on
the top of the house, straight above our bed, as if the one party
were breaking through the roof, and the other forcibly preventing
it; at another it was at the door, and at a third time at the window;
but still mine host lay sound by my side, and did not waken.
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