Dancing in Ireland, like everything else connected with the amusement of the people, is frequently productive of bloodshed.  It is not unusual for crack dancers from opposite parishes, or from distant parts of the same parish, to meet and dance against each other for victory.  But as the judges in those cases consist of the respective friends or factions of the champions, their mode of decision may readily be conjectured.  Many a battle is fought in consequence of such challenges, the result usually being that not he who has the lightest heel, but the hardest head, generally comes off the conqueror.

While the usual variety of Irish dances—­the reel, jig, fling, three-part-reel, four-part-reel, rowly-powly, country-dance, cotillion, or cut-along (as the peasantry call it), and minuet, vulgarly minion, and minionet—­were going forward in due rotation, our readers may be assured that those who were seated around the walls did not permit the time to pass without improving it.  Many an attachment is formed at such amusements, and many a bitter jealousy is excited:  the prude and coquette, the fop and rustic Lothario, stand out here as prominently to the eye of him who is acquainted with human nature, as they do in similar assemblies among the great:  perhaps more so, as there is less art, and a more limited knowledge of intrigue, to conceal their natural character.

The dance in Ireland usually commences with those who sit next the door, from whence it goes round with the sun.  In this manner it circulates two or three times, after which the order is generally departed from, and they dance according as they can.  This neglect of the established rule is also a fertile source of discord; for when two persons rise at the same time, if there be not room for both, the right of dancing first is often decided by blows.

At the dance we are describing, however, there was no dissension; every heart appeared to be not only elated with mirth, but also free from resentment and jealousy.  The din produced by the thumping of vigorous feet upon the floor, the noise of the fiddle, the chat between Barny and the little sober knot about him, together with the brisk murmur of the general conversation, and the expression of delight which sat on every countenance, had something in them elevating to the spirits.

Barny, who knew their voices, and even the mode of dancing peculiar to almost every one in the barn, had some joke for each.  When a young man brings out his sweetheart—­which he frequently does in a manner irresistibly ludicrous, sometimes giving a spring from the earth, his caubeen set with a knowing air on one side of his head, advancing at a trot on tiptoe, catching her by the ear, leading her out to her position, which is “to face the fiddler,” then ending by a snap of the fingers, and another spring, in which he brings his heel backwards in contact with his ham;—­we say, when a young man brings out his sweetheart, and places her facing the fiddler, he asks her what will she dance; to which, if she as no favorite tune, she uniformly replies—­“Your will is my pleasure.”  This usually made Barny groan aloud.