"And not a very bad one, as your hanner will say, if you allow me
to play you a tune."
"Can you play Croppies Lie Down?"
"I cannot, your hanner, my fingers never learnt to play such a
blackguard tune; but if you wish to hear Croppies Get Up I can
oblige ye."
"You are a Roman Catholic, I suppose?"
"I am not, your hanner - I am a Catholic to the back-bone, just
like my father before me. Come, your hanner, shall I play ye
Croppies Get Up?"
"No," said I; "it's a tune that doesn't please my ears. If,
however, you choose to play Croppies Lie Down, I'll give you a
shilling."
"Your hanner will give me a shilling?"
"Yes," said I; "if you play Croppies Lie Down; but you know you
cannot play it, your fingers never learned the tune."
"They never did, your hanner; but they have heard it played of ould
by the blackguard Orange fiddlers of Dublin on the first of July,
when the Protestant boys used to walk round Willie's statue on
College Green - so if your hanner gives me the shilling, they may
perhaps bring out something like it."
"Very good," said I; "begin!"
"But, your hanner, what shall we do for the words? though my
fingers may remember the tune my tongue does not remember the words
- that is unless . . ."
"I give another shilling," said I; "but never mind you the words; I
know the words, and will repeat them."
"And your hanner will give me a shilling?"
"If you play the tune," said I.
"Hanner bright, your hanner?"
"Honour bright," said I.
Thereupon the fiddler taking his bow and shouldering his fiddle,
struck up in first-rate style the glorious tune, which I had so
often heard with rapture in the days of my boyhood in the barrack-
yard of Clonmel; whilst I, walking by his side as he stumped along,
caused the welkin to resound with the words, which were the delight
of the young gentlemen of the Protestant academy of that beautiful
old town.
"I never heard those words before," said the fiddler, after I had
finished the first stanza.
"Get on with you," said I.
"Regular Orange words!" said the fiddler, on my finishing the
second stanza.
"Do you choose to get on?" said I.
"More blackguard Orange words I never heard!" cried the fiddler, on
my coming to the conclusion of the third stanza. "Divil a bit
farther will I play; at any rate till I get the shilling."
"Here it is for you," said I; "the song is ended, and, of course,
the tune."
"Thank your hanner," said the fiddler, taking the money, "your
hanner has kept your word with me, which is more than I thought
your hanner would. And now your hanner let me ask you why did your
hanner wish for that tune, which is not only a blackguard one but
quite out of date; and where did your hanner get the words?"
"I used to hear the tune in my boyish days," said I, "and wished to
hear it again, for though you call it a blackguard tune, it is the
sweetest and most noble air that Ireland, the land of music, has
ever produced.
