There
parting with her (besides her skinfull of drinke), and English crowne
to buy more drinke; for, good wench, she was in a pittious heate; my
kindness she requited with dropping a dozen good courtsies, and
bidding God blesse the dauncer. I bade her adieu; and, to give her her
due, she had a good eare, daunst truly, and wee parted friends.' Kemp,
you perceive, wrote as well as he danced. I wish he had danced less
and written more. It seems that he never wrote anything but this one
delightful pamphlet. He died three years later, in the thirtieth year
of his age--died dancing, with his bells on his legs, in the village
of Ockley.
John Thorndrake, another professional Morris-dancer, was not so
brilliant a personage as poor Kemp; but was of tougher fibre, it would
seem. He died in his native town, Canterbury, at the age of seventy-
eight; and had danced--never less than a mile, seldom less than five
miles--every day, except Sunday, for sixty years. But even his record
pales beside the account of a Morris that was danced by eight men, in
Hereford, one May-day in the reign of James I. The united ages of
these dancers, according to a contemporary pamphleteer, exceeded eight
hundred years. The youngest of them was seventy-nine, and the ages of
the rest ranged between ninety-five and a hundred and nine.
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