_For the Table Book._
The concluding dance at a country wake, or other general meeting, is the
“Cushion Dance;” and if it be not called for when the company are tired
with dancing, the fiddler, who has an interest in it which will be seen
hereafter, frequently plays the tune to remind them of it. A young man
of the company leaves the room; the poor young women, uninformed of the
plot against them, suspecting nothing; but he no sooner returns, bearing
a cushion in one hand and a pewter pot in the other, than they are aware
of the mischief intended, and would certainly make their escape, had
not the bearer of cushion and pot, aware of the invincible aversion
which young women have to be saluted by young men, prevented their
flight by locking the door, and putting the key in his pocket. The dance
then begins.
The young man advances to the fiddler, drops a penny in the pot, and
gives it to one of his companions; cushion then dances round the room,
followed by pot, and when they again reach the fiddler, the cushion says
in a sort of recitative, accompanied by the music, “This dance it will
no farther go.”
The fiddler, in return, sings or says, for it partakes of both, “I pray,
kind sir, why say you so?”
The answer is, “Because Joan Sanderson won’t come to.”
“But,” replies the fiddler, “she must come to, and she shall come to,
whether she will or no.”
The young man, thus armed with the authority of the village musician,
recommences his dance round the room, but stops when he comes to the
girl he likes best, and drops the cushion at her feet; she puts her
penny in the pewter pot, and kneels down with the young man on the
cushion, and he salutes her.
When they rise, the woman takes up the cushion, and leads the dance, the
man following, and holding the skirt of her gown; and having made the
circuit of the room, they stop near the fiddler, and the same dialogue
is repeated, except, as it is now the woman who speaks, it is _John_
Sanderson who won’t come to, and the fiddler’s mandate is issued to
_him_, not her.
The woman drops the cushion at the feet of her favourite man; the same
ceremony and the same dance are repeated, till every man and woman, the
pot bearer last, has been taken out, and all have danced round the room
in a file.
The pence are the perquisite of the fiddler.