Stephen Dancing

[esteven]

This I had from Mateu's own cousin as we danced -'
'You danced?' cried Jack, far more astonished than if Stephen had said 'as we ate our cold roast baby'.
'Certainty I danced. Why would I not dance, pray?'
'Certainty you are to dance most uncommon graceful, I am sure. I only wondered, but did you indeed go about dancing?'
'I did. You have not travelled in Catalonia, sir, I believe?'
'Not I.'
'Then I must tell you that on Sunday mornings it is the custom, in that country, for people of all ages and conditions to dance, on coming out of church: so I was dancing with Ramon Mateu i Cadafalch in the square before the cathedral church of Tarragona, where I had gone to hear the Palestrina Missa Brevis. The dance is a particular dance, a round called the sardana;

(chapter eight)