north from Rowsley.

I shall not stop to tell you of the warm welcome given me by Sir George
Vernon, nor of his delight when I briefly told him my misfortunes in
Scotland--misfortunes that had brought me to Haddon Hall. Nor shall I
describe the great boar's head supper given in my honor, at which there
were twenty men who could have put me under the table. I thought I knew
something of the art of drinking, but at that supper I soon found I was a
mere tippler compared with these country guzzlers. At that feast I learned
also that Dorothy, when she had hinted concerning Sir George's excessive
drinking, had told the truth. He, being the host, drank with all his
guests. Near midnight he grew distressingly drunk, talkative, and violent,
and when toward morning he was carried from the room by his servants, the
company broke up. Those who could do so reeled home; those who could not
walk at all were put to bed by the retainers at Haddon Hall. I had chosen
my bedroom high up in Eagle Tower. At table I had tried to remain sober.
That, however, was an impossible task, for at the upper end of the hail
there was a wrist-ring placed in the wainscoting at a height of ten or
twelve inches above the head of an ordinary man, and if he refused to
drink as much as the other guests thought he should, his wrist was
fastened above his head in the ring, and the liquor which he should have
poured down his throat was poured down his sleeve. Therefore to avoid this
species of rustic sport I drank much more than was good for me. When the
feast closed I thought I was sober enough to go to my room unassisted; so
I took a candle, and with a great show of self-confidence climbed the
spiral stone stairway to the door of my room. The threshold of my door was
two or three feet above the steps of the stairway, and after I had
contemplated the distance for a few minutes, I concluded that it would not
be safe for me to attempt to climb into my sleeping apartments without
help. Accordingly I sat down upon the step on which I had been standing,