As we went along, Mickey, with his usual tact, got out of us all the information respecting the several courtships of the neighbourhood that had reached us, and as much, too, of the village gossip and scandal as we knew. Nothing can exceed the overflowing kindness and affection with which the Irish fiddler is received on the occasion of a dance or merry-making; and to do him justice he loses no opportunity of exaggerating his own importance. From habit, and his position among the people, his wit and power of repartee are necessarily cultivated and sharpened. Not one of his jokes ever fails--a circumstance which improves his humour mightily; for nothing on earth sustains it so much as knowing, that, whether good or bad, it will be laughed at. Mickey, by the way, was a bachelor, and, though blind, was able, as he himself used to say, to see through his ears better than another could through the eyes. He knew every voice at once, and every boy and girl in the parish by name, the moment he heard them speak. On reaching the house he is bound for, he either partakes of, or at least is offered, refreshment, after which comes the ecstatic moment to the youngsters: but all this is done by due and solemn preparation. First he calls for a pair of scissors, with which he pares or seems to pare his nails; then asks for a piece of rosin, and in an instant half a dozen boys are off at a break-neck pace, to the next shoemaker’s, to procure it; whilst in the meantime he deliberately pulls a piece out of his pocket and rosins his bow. But, heavens! what a ceremony the opening of that fiddle-case is! The manipulation of the blind man as he runs his hand down to the key-hole--the turning of the key--the taking out of the fiddle--the twang twang--and then the first ecstatic sound, as the bow is drawn across the strings; then comes a screwing; then a delicious saw or two; again another screwing--twang twang--and away he goes with the favourite tune of the good woman, for such is the etiquette upon these occasions. The house is immediately thronged with the neighbours, and a preliminary dance is taken, in which the old folks, with good-humoured violence, are literally dragged out, and forced to join. Then come the congratulations--“Ah, Jack, you could do it wanst,” says Mickey, “an’ can still; you have a kick in you yet.” “Why, Mickey, I seen dancin’ in my time,” the old man will reply, his brow relaxed by a remnant of his former pride, and the hilarity of the moment, “but you see the breath isn’t what it used to be wid me, when I could dance the _Baltehorum Jig_ on the bottom of a ten-gallon cask. But I think a glass o’ whisky will do us no harm afther that. Heighho!--well, well--I’m sure I thought _my_ dancin’ days wor over.” “Bedad an’ you wor matched any how,” rejoined the fiddler. “Molshy carried as light a heel as ever you did; sorra a woman of her years ever I seen could cut the buckle wid her. You would know the tune on her feet still.”