They pranced on their chairs;
they could not keep still. She jumped up; so did they. She gave a wild
Irish horroo. She put the fiddle in Triplet's hand.
"The wind that shakes the barley, ye divil!" cried she.
Triplet went _hors de lui;_ he played like Paganini, or an intoxicated
demon. Woffington covered the buckle in gallant style; she danced, the
children danced. Triplet fiddled and danced, and flung his limbs in wild
dislocation: the wineglasses danced; and last, Mrs. Triplet was observed
to be bobbing about on her sofa, in a monstrous absurd way, droning out
the tune, and playing her hands with mild enjoyment, all to herself.
Woffington pointed out this pantomimic soliloquy to the two boys, with a
glance full of fiery meaning. This was enough. With a fiendish yell, they
fell upon her, and tore her, shrieking, off the sofa. And lo! when she
was once launched, she danced up to her husband, and set to him with a
meek deliberation that was as funny as any part of the scene. So then the
mover of all this slipped on one side, and let the stone of merriment -
roll--and roll it did; there was no swimming, sprawling, or irrelevant
frisking; their feet struck the ground for every note of the fiddle, pat
as its echo, their faces shone, their hearts leaped, and their poor
frozen natures came out, and warmed themselves at the glowing melody; a
great sunbeam had come into their abode, and these human motes danced in
it.
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