about
three to five
There was a brown cupboard in one corner , and an apoplectic eight-day clock in another . A small bookshelf supported the family Bible and several ancient and much-worn volumes . Wooden benches were ranged round the walls ; and clumsy chairs and tables , with various pails , buckets , luggies , troughs , and indescribable articles , completed the furniture of the picturesque and cosy apartment . The candle that lighted the whole was supported by a tall wooden candlestick , whose foot rested on the ground , and whose body , by a simple but clumsy contrivance , could be lengthened or shortened at pleasure , from about three to five feet . But besides all this , there was a world of _ materiel _ disposed on the black rafters above -- old farm implements , broken furniture , an old musket , an old claymore , a broken spinning-wheel , etcetera , all of which were piled up and so mingled with the darkness of the vault above , that imagination might have deemed the spot a general rendezvous for the aged and the maimed of `` still life . '' Fast and furious was the dancing that night . Native animal spirits did it all .