Bits of Blarney

by R. Shelton Mackenzie

Such a being as a youthful dancing-master I never saw—never heard of. They were invariably middle-aged men, at the youngest; but professors of "the poetry of motion," who were about seventy, appeared the greatest favourites. It was dreaded, perhaps, that the attraction of youth and good dancing combined would be too much for the village beauties to resist. On the same system, in all probability, it was a sine quâ non that the dancing-master should be married.

The Irish peasantry used to have a sort of passion for dancing. Hence the necessity for a teacher. On stated evenings during the winter, no matter what obstacles wet weather or dirty roads might present, a large company of pupils, from the age of ten to forty years, would assemble, in some roomy barn, possessing a smooth and hard floor of closely-pounded clay, to receive instructions in the saltatory art. Sometimes, when the teacher was ambitious, he would flourishingly open the proceedings with what was called "a bit of a noration,"—the oratory principally consisting of sesquipedalian words and mythological allusions, being composed by the schoolmaster—utterly unintelligible, but sounding largely, and delivered in an ore rotundo manner and with "a laudable voice," as if the dancing-master really understood the words he uttered. Not taking particular pains to follow "copy," and frequently putting in words of his own when those written down for him had slipped out of his memory, these orations were amusingly absurd. They invariably commenced with an allusion to Miriam dancing before Moses, after the passage of the Red Sea, (on which occasion, no doubt, was first heard "the piper who played before Moses," familiarly named in Irish colloquy,) and, passing down, through Homer and the classics, always ended with a warm eulogy on the antiquity of the dance.

In those days, the favourite exhibitions were the jig, the reel, the hornpipe, and the country-dance. The last-named was considered dreadfully genteel—too aristocratic, in fact, for the multitude—and was learned and practiced (as courting and kissing often are) on the sly! The reel was countenanced—and no more. It was rather Scotch than Irish. Every one was expected to be able to go that laborious piece of amusement called "The Sailor's Hornpipe,"—faint vestiges of which are extant, to this hour, in nautical scenes,—as represented on the stage. Words cannot describe the evolutions of this remarkable dance, when exhibited with all the scientific varieties of which it was capable. The shuffles, cross-shuffles, jumps, hops, leaps, cuttings, slides, and so on, which were introduced, I am unable to describe. The manner in which "heel-and-toe" was employed and varied, some abler historian may record.

That the hours passed away on swift pinions at these dancing academies, may well be imagined. There was any quantity of flirtation at all times, and about half the marriages in the country owed their origin to these réunions. It is creditable to the proverbial good conduct of my countrywomen, that loss of character rarely, if ever, resulted from these free-and-easy meetings.

The real glory of the evening, however, was when the dancing-master, after a world of solicitation, would "take the flure," in order to give his admiring pupils a touch of his quality. On such an occasion, the door of the house would be lifted off its hinges, and placed in the centre of the floor. Abandoning the little kit (a small-sized violin) which was his companion at all other exhibitions, he would allow a blind piper to "discourse most excellent music," and, on the door, would commence that wondrous display of agility, known, in my time, as "cover the buckle;"—a name probably derived from the circumstance that the dancing-master, while teaching, always wore large buckles in his shoes, and by the rapidity of motion with which he would make his "many twinkling feet" perpetually cross, would seem to "cover" the appendages in question. The great effort was to exhibit all varieties of steps and dances, without once quitting the prostrate door on which the exhibitor took his stand. The jumps, the "cuttings" in the air, the bends, the dives, the wrigglings, the hops—these were all critically regarded by his audience, and sometimes rewarded with such exclamations as "That's the way,"—"now for a double cut,"—"cover-the-buckle, ye divel,"—"Oh, then, 'tis he that handles his feet nately." At the conclusion, when he literally had danced himself almost off his legs, he would bow to the company, and—if he were very much a favourite, or had eclipsed all former displays—one of the prettiest girls in the room would go round, plate in hand, and make a collection for him. How the ten-penny and five-penny bits would tumble in, on those occasions—particularly if the fair collector could be induced to announce, with a blush and a smile, that she would take an extra donation on the usual terms, which meant that, for five shillings into the plate, any gallant swain might brush the dew from her own coral lips, on that occasion only and by particular desire. Can you doubt, for a moment, that the likely "boy" who had been sitting by her side all the evening, making babies on her eyes (as the saying is), and with his arm round her waist, just to steady her in her seat, would jump up and fling his crown-piece into the treasury—though the pecuniary sacrifice would probably involve his being obliged to dispense, for a few weeks more, with "the new Carline hat" on which his dandyism had set its mind, for his Sunday adorning!

It was difficult for "an outsider" to become a spectator of the peculiar modes of teaching adopted and practiced by these masters. At a small extra rate, they would undertake to give instructions in that "deportment," of which the late Mr. Turvey-drop was such an illustrious exemplar. I never witnessed anything of this sort, but have conversed on the subject with some who did. From what I could learn, the whole course of tuition in this particular branch must have been ludicrous in the extreme. Besides lessons in standing, walking, sitting, and even leaning with grace and ease, more recondite points were considered. Such were "how to slide out of a room backwards" (on the chance, no doubt, of some of the rustics having to appear at Court, before Royalty)—"how to accept a tumbler of punch from a gentleman," touching the liquid with her lips, so as to leave a kiss within the cup, as Ben Jonson advises,—"how to refuse a kiss," and yet not destroy the hope of its being accepted, a little later in the evening,—and, above all, "how to take a kiss," in the most genteel and approved manner of politeness! These instructions, super-added to a lesson that was called "the Grecian bend" (which was nothing less than a coquettish way of leaning forward, with the eyes cast down, while listening to soft nonsense from a favoured swain), were peculiar and private. The only way in which the male sex could obtain a glimpse at such Eleusinian mysteries was by taking a recumbent position on the roof of the house, carefully removing a small portion of the thatch, and using eyes and ears in that situation to the best advantage. If detected by the irate maidens, the spy would run a fair chance of a scratched face and well-boxed ears.

As might be expected, the country dancing-master sometimes had stupid and refractory pupils. There was a common method of giving them instruction, which, for its practical simplicity, may be worth relating. When the pupil would persist in not recollecting which foot was to be used, at particular periods, the dancing-master would take a rope made of twisted hay, called a suggaun, and fasten it around one of the delinquent's ankles. He would then take a similar bracelet of twisted willow, denominated a gad, and put this on the other. Then, instead of directing the pupil to the particular use or motion of the right leg or the left, he would exclaim, "Rise upon suggaun," or "Sink upon gad," and in this manner convey his instructions beyond a possibility of mistake by even the most stupid!

Of course, where there was large company of young people, full of life and spirit, under pupilage to a not young instructor, a variety of practical jokes would be perpetrated, at his expense, every now and then. They were almost invariably of a good-natured kind. One, which might be considered as to "be repeated every night until farther notice," generally came off towards the end of the evening. A joyous, light-hearted damsel would suddenly start up, while the music was playing, and, placing herself before the dancing-master, with that particular description of curtsy called "a bob," silently challenge him to dance with her. Now, under all circumstances, except actual inability to move, the gentleman so challenged has nothing to do but pick up the gauntlet, and "take the flure." Then, challenger and challenged would commence an Irish jig—a dance so violent that, writing in the dog-days as I do, the very recollection of it makes me feel as if the barometer was some two hundred in the shade. When the damsel had pretty well tired herself, one of her fair friends would take her place, and so on until a round dozen or so had had their turn. All this time, the doomed victim of a man had to continue dancing—and the point of honour was to do so, without giving in, as long as strength and wind lasted. The company would gather round, forming a ring for the performers, and the word would be, "On with the dance" (as it was, at Brussels, on the eve of Waterloo), until, at last, some male spectator would pityingly dash into the circle, take the tired man's place, and permit the breathless and exhausted victim to totter to a seat, gasping out a protest, as he did, that he could have held out for half an hour longer, and wondered why any gentleman should interfere with another gentleman's divarshun.

In the preceding story of "The Petrified Piper," mention is made of a dancing-master commonly known as "Ould Lynch." He was an original, in many respects, and, like many of his profession, was in a constant flutter of faded finery and actual poverty. He was so much a character that my father took rather a fancy to him, and had him often at the house, as a teacher of dancing, in the well populated town of Fermoy. He had small chance of earning what would keep life and soul together. But he was a quiet, unassuming man, better educated than most of his class, and full of anecdote. One social virtue he eminently possessed:—he was one of the best backgammon players I ever saw, and (I speak it modestly,) was very fond of me as a pupil.

Lynch was a County Limerick man, on the confines of "the Kingdom of Kerry," and informed me that, in the parish where he was brought up, the natives had a passion for backgammon, and were wont, on high-days and holidays, to hold tournaments (on their favourite game) with the inhabitants of the next parish, in Kerry. Unfortunately, one day when a great trial of skill was appointed to come off, it turned out that no backgammon box was forthcoming. Both parties had contrived to forget it. To send for the necessary implements would have been a waste of time, when the combatants had "their souls in arms," and were "eager for the fray." In this dilemma, a lad who had a decided genius for expedients suggested a plan by which, without delay, their mutual wishes could be realized. Under his advice, one of the meadows was fixed upon as the scene of action. The turf was removed at intervals, so as to make the place present the semblance of a backgammon board, and substitutes for men were readily found in the flat stones and slates with which the ground abounded. The great difficulty was—the dice! They could extemporize board and men, but how to raise the bits of ivory? The lad was not to be baffled. He proposed that two men, one selected from each party, should sit on the ditch opposite each other, with "the board in the centre, with their respective backs turned from the combatants, and, in turn, should call out the numbers, as if they had been actually thrown by dice! This brilliant idea was acted upon. A halfpenny was thrown up to decide who should have first play, and the men on the ditch alternately called out, at will, any of the throws which might have been actually cast had the dice themselves been "to the fore."