THE MINERS’ BALL. 257 
your places, salute your partners,’—then crash 
went two fiddles, crowding out a break-down. 
Again the voice —‘ Half right and left’ — and 
off they went. The sounds of countless feet, 
scufflmg rapidly over a floor, told me, in lan- 
guage not to be mistaken, that a ball was going 
briskly on very near my head. 
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, took a long mourn- 
ful yawn, and began to consider what had best 
be done. I discovered that a thin wooden par- 
tition only intervened betwixt my head and the 
ball-room; everything rattled to the jigging tune 
of the music and the dancers; the windows, the 
doors, the wash-crockery, the bed, all jigged; and 
I began to feel myself involuntarily nodding to 
the same measure, and jigging mentally like the 
rest. Shades of the departed! I could not stand 
this. Goodby bed, and feathers, and sleep! J 
may as well dance in reality as in imagination ; 
and abandoning all my anticipated delights, 
dressed, and entered the ball-room. 
It was a long room, lighted with candles hung 
against the wall in tin sconces ; the company—if 
variety is charming—was perfect. The costumes, 
as a rule, were more suggestive of ease than 
elegance; scarlet shirts and buckskin ‘pants’ 
were in the ascendant. The boots as a rule, 
VOL. if Ss 
