Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/26

Rh winds and put his heart and mind into his two nimble feet. Darby’s dancing was such that purty soon those around stood still to admire.

There’s a saying come down in our family through generations which I still hould to be true, that the better the music the aisier the step. Sure never did mortal men dance to so fine a chune and never so supple a dancer did such a chune meet up with.

Fair and graceful he began. Backward and forward, side-step and turn; cross over, thin forward; a hand on his hip and his stick twirling free; side-step and forward; cross over agin; bow to his partner, and hammer the floor.

It wasn’t long till half the dancers crowded around admiring, clapping their hands, and shouting encouragement. The ould King grew so excited that he laid down the pipes, took up his fiddle, came down from the throne, and, standing ferninst Darby, began a finer chune than the first.

The dancing lasted a whole hour, no one speaking a word except to cry out, “Foot it, ye divil!” “Aisy now, he’s threading on flowers!” “Hooroo! hooroo! hooray!” Then the King stopped and said:

“Well, that bates Banagher, and Banagher bates Rh