At this I could have
laughed, but the moment seemed ill-chosen. For, though six feet
was their standard, they all exceeded that measurement
considerably; and I tasted again some of the sensations of
childhood, as I looked up to all these lads from a lower plane, and
wondered what they would do next. But the Six-Footers, if they
were very drunk, proved no less kind. The landlord and servants of
the Hunters' Tryst were in bed and asleep long ago. Whether by
natural gift or acquired habit they could suffer pandemonium to
reign all over the house, and yet lie ranked in the kitchen like
Egyptian mummies, only that the sound of their snoring rose and
fell ceaselessly like the drone of a bagpipe. Here the Six-Footers
invaded them--in their citadel, so to speak; counted the bunks and
the sleepers; proposed to put me in bed to one of the lasses,
proposed to have one of the lasses out to make room for me, fell
over chairs, and made noise enough to waken the dead: the whole
illuminated by the same young torch-bearer, but now with two
candles, and rapidly beginning to look like a man in a snowstorm.
At last a bed was found for me, my clothes were hung out to dry
before the parlour fire, and I was mercifully left to my repose.
I awoke about nine with the sun shining in my eyes. The landlord
came at my summons, brought me my clothes dried and decently
brushed, and gave me the good news that the Six-Feet-High Club were
all abed and sleeping off their excesses.
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