taking any chance guest as a standard of the average conviviality.
Mr. and Mrs. Jim Lewarne, for example, were accustomed on such occasions
to represent the van and rear-guard respectively in the march of gaiety;
and in this instance Jim had already imbibed too much hot "shenachrum,"
while his wife, still in the stage of artificial ease, and wearing a
lace cap, which was none the less dignified for having been smuggled,
was perpending what to say when she should get him home. The dancers,
pale and dusty, leant back in rows against the wall, and with their
handkerchiefs went through the motions of fanning or polishing,
according to sex. In their midst circulated Farmer Tresidder, with a
three-handled mug of shenachrum, hot from the embers, and furred with
wood-ash.

"Take an' drink, thirsty souls. Niver do I mind the Letterpooch so
footed i' my born days."

"'Twas conspirator--very conspirator," assented Old Zeb, screwing up his
A string a trifle, and turning _con spirito_ into a dark saying.

"What's that?"

"Greek for elbow-grease. Phew!" He rubbed his fore-finger round
between neck and shirt-collar. "I be vady as the inside of a winder."

"Such a man as you be to sweat, crowder!" exclaimed Calvin Oke.
"Set you to play six-eight time an' 'tis beads right away."

"A slice o' saffern-cake, crowder, to stay ye. Don't say no. Hi, Mary
Jane!"