This was, properly
speaking, but a strip across a deck-house, lit by a sickly lantern
which swung to and fro with the motion of the ship.
Through the
open slide-door we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches
of phosphorescent foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and
the horizon rising and falling as the vessel rolled to the wind.
In the centre the companion ladder plunged down sheerly like an
open pit. Below, on the first landing, and lighted by another
lamp, lads and lasses danced, not more than three at a time for
lack of space, in jigs and reels and hornpipes. Above, on either
side, there was a recess railed with iron, perhaps two feet wide
and four long, which stood for orchestra and seats of honour. In
the one balcony, five slatternly Irish lasses sat woven in a comely
group. In the other was posted Orpheus, his body, which was
convulsively in motion, forming an odd contrast to his somnolent,
imperturbable Scots face. His brother, a dark man with a vehement,
interested countenance, who made a god of the fiddler, sat by with
open mouth, drinking in the general admiration and throwing out
remarks to kindle it.
'That's a bonny hornpipe now,' he would say, 'it's a great
favourite with performers; they dance the sand dance to it.' And
he expounded the sand dance. Then suddenly, it would be a long,
'Hush!' with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating eyes, 'he's
going to play "Auld Robin Gray" on one string!' And throughout
this excruciating movement, - 'On one string, that's on one string!'
he kept crying.
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