"I have often wondered thorow my life, how any that ever knew what it was
to bow a knee in earnest to pray, durst crook a hough to fyke and fling
at a piper's and fiddler's springs. I bless the Lord that ordered my lot
so in my dancing days, that made the fear of the bloody rope and bullets
to my neck and head, the pain of boots, thumikens, and irons, cold and
hunger, wetness and weariness, to stop the lightness of my head, and the
wantonness of my feet. What the never-to-be-forgotten Man of God, John
Knox, said to Queen Mary, when she gave him that sharp challenge, which
would strike our mean-spirited, tongue-tacked ministers dumb, for his
giving public faithful warning of the danger of the church and nation,
through her marrying the Dauphine of France, when he left her bubbling
and greeting, and came to an outer court, where her Lady Maries were
fyking and dancing, he said, 'O brave ladies, a brave world, if it would
last, and heaven at the hinder end! But fye upon the knave Death, that
will seize upon those bodies of yours; and where will all your fiddling
and flinging be then?' Dancing being such a common evil, especially
amongst young professors, that all the lovers of the Lord should hate,
has caused me to insist the more upon it, especially that foolish spring
the Cameronian march!"--_Life and Death of Three Famous Worthies,_ etc.
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