"Be not abashed, Jack," whispered the old captain. "They know not what to think. Show them how the dance should be done. Slide and sprawl, my lad. Sprawl with a will and both together," he added, hoarsely, "with a yo-heave-ho!"
Then the music began again, and Molly stood opposite to me—and the dance began.
For my own part I obeyed the captain's admonition. I endeavoured to forget the people who were looking on—I tried to think that we were rehearsing in the garden—and feeling confidence return, I began to slide and sprawl with a will.
All the people were gathered round us in a circle. The ladies, holding their fans before their faces, tittered and giggled audibly. The men, for their part, laughed openly, making observations not intended to be good-natured. They were laughing at me! And I was getting on, as I believed, so well. However, I did not know the cause of their merriment, and carried on the sprawling with a greater will than ever.
I am sorry now, whenever I think upon it, that Molly had not a better partner. For my performance, which was quite correct, and in every particular exactly what Mr. Prappet had taught me, was distinguished, I learned afterwards, by a certain exaggeration of gesture due to my desire to be correct, which made the dance ridiculous. If only I had been permitted to give them a hornpipe! What had I, a mere tarpaulin, as they say, to do with fine clothes, fashionable sliding and sprawling, and the pretence of fashionable manners?
You must not think that Molly, though it was her first appearance in public, though she wore these fine things for the first time, though all eyes were upon her, was in the least degree abashed. She bore herself with modesty and an assumed unconsciousness of what people were saying and how they were looking at her, which certainly did her great credit. And I am quite sure that, whatever my own performance, hers was full of grace and ease, and the dignity which makes this dance so fit for great lords and ladies and so unfit for rustic swains and shepherdesses. She smiled upon her partner as sweetly as if we were together in the garden; she played her fan as prettily as if we were rehearsing the dance with mirth and merriment—it was a costly fan, with paintings upon it and a handle set with pearls.
The dance was finished at last, and I led my partner to the end of the room, where the maids sat all in a row with white aprons and white caps—among them Molly's woman, Nigra—to repair any disorder to the head or to the dress caused by the active movements of the dance.
And then they all began to talk. I could hear fragments and whole sentences. They were talking about us.
"Who is she, then?" asked one lady, impatiently. "Where does she come from?"
"Perhaps a sea nymph," replied a gentleman, gallantly, "brought from the ocean by the god Neptune, who stands over yonder. One can smell the seaweed."