CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FAIRY MUSIC.
Never was there such music and dancing as they had in Dermot's kitchen that night. There were two pipers and two fiddlers and a harper, so that the music never ceased. When one piper stopped the other would go on, and when one fiddler stopped the other fiddler would go on; and it was oftener the whole five would be going on together than that any one of them was idle—in the beginning of the night, at all events.
There was a fine big broad flag in the floor opposite the fire, and if you were beyond in the room listening to what went on, you would swear it was a shower of shoes that was falling upon that flag all night long, except that the shoes kept time with the music. I promise you Nora of the Causeway and her two brothers got hot dancing, and that they made others of the dancers get hotter.
When they used to be tired with dancing Michael was ready with drinks for them, but he did not appear to be watching them to give them to them. The dancers did not take much of the wine. They knew that if they drank much of it it would go not only into their heads, but into their feet too, and if the wine got into their feet there would be an end to the dancing.
The company used to sit down for a while, now and again, between two turns of dancing, and one of them would sing a fine stirring tuneful song There were some of them that had splendid chest-
