Page:Under the greenwood tree (1872 Volume 1).pdf/119

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THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY.
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argued to his wife, whom he often addressed in the plural masculine for convenience of epithet merely; 'I don't see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten your clothes. Isn't that nater and reason for gentle and simple? If I strip by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather pothousey, I own; but if we stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of the country, which no man can gainsay. Hey—what do you say, my sonnies?'

'Strip we will!' said the three other heavy men; and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage, whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, a general glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained

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