was apt to lead
on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would
sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing-party was the
alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing objection on the
score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the matter
of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the exercise
causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel fell back
upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with short periods
of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in either.
But this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: the
shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases
of hospitality.

The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who
had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were
so small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high
notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds
not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this
youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground-bass from Elijah
New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him his
favorite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous,
Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let the
dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour.

But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite
forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen,
one of the dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of
thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to
the musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle
and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the
countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's
elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. But they took no
notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if
she were to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat down helpless.
And so the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers
moving in their planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from
apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked clock at the
bottom of the room had travelled over the circumference of an hour.

While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within
Fennel's pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing