“Him to get lost!” exclaimed Jim. “Catch Dermod Flynn doin’ anything as foolish as that! He’s the cute rogue is Dermod!”
The tables and chairs in the eating-room were now cleared away and someone suggested getting up a dance. The harvestmen ceased swearing and began thumping their hobnailed boots on the floor; Willie the Duck played on a fiddle, which he had procured years before for a few shillings in a Glasgow rag-market, and in the space of a minute all the women, including old Maire a Glan, who looked sixty if a day, ranged on the floor preparatory to dancing a six-hand reel. On seeing this, the red-nosed landlord jumped over the counter and commenced to swear at the musician.
“The curse of Moses be on ye!” he roared. “There’ll be no dancin’ here. Thumpin’ on the floor, ye gallivantin’ fools! If ye want dancin’ go out to the quay and dance. Dance into the Foyle or into hell if ye like, but don’t dance here! Come now, stop it at once!”
“It’s such a roarin’ tune,” said Maire a Glan, interrupting him.
“It is that,” answered the man, “but it needs a lighter foot than yours to do it justice, decent woman. There was a time when me meself could caper to that; aye, indeed.... But what am I talkin’ about? There’ll be no dancin’ here.”
“Just one wee short one?” said a girl. Willie the Duck played with redoubled enthusiasm.
“No, nor half a one,” said the proprietor, tapping absently on the floor with his foot. “God’s curse on ye all! D’ye want to bring down the house over me head?... ‘The Movin’ Bogs of Allen’ that’s playin’, isn’t it? A good tune it, surely. But stop it! stop it!” roared the red-nosed man, cutting a caper, half a step and half a kick in front of the fiddler. “I don’t want your damned dancin’, I can’t stand it. God have mercy on me! Sure I’m wantin’ to foot it meself!”
II
BUT the dancing was in full swing now, despite the vehemence of the proprietor. He looked round helplessly, and finding that his wife was already dancing with old Eamon Doherty he seized hold of the servant girl and whirled her into the midst of the party with a loud whoop that surprised himself even as much as it surprised the Donegal dancers.
Micky’s Jim was dancing with Norah Ryan and pressing her tightly to his body. The youth’s breath smelt of whisky and his movements were violent and irregular.