ose 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that tune, which is not only a blackguard one, but quite out of date; and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. As
for the words, never mind where I got them; they are violent enough, but
not half so violent as the words of some of the songs made against the
Irish Protestants by the priests.'

"'Your hanner is an Orange man, I see. Well, your hanner, the Orange is
now in the kennel, and the Croppies have it all their own way.'

"'And perhaps,' said I, 'before I die, the Orange will be out of the
kennel and the Croppies in, even as they were in my young days.'

"'Who knows, your hanner? and who knows that I may not play the ould tune
round Willie's image in College Green, even as I used some twenty-seven
years ago?'

"'O then you have been an Orange fiddler?'

"'I have, your hanner. And now as your hanner has behaved like a
gentleman to me I will tell ye all my history. I was born in the city of
Dublin, that is in the village of Donnybrook, as I tould your hanner
before. It was to the trade of bricklaying I was bred, and bricklaying I
followed till at last, getting my leg smashed, not by falling off the
ladder, but by a row in the fair, I was obliged to give it up, for how
could I run up the ladder with a patten on my foot, which they put on to
make my broken leg as long as the other. Well, your hanner; being
obliged to give up my bricklaying, I took to fiddling, to which I had
always a natural inclination, and played about the streets, and at fairs,
and wakes, and weddings. At length some Orange men getting acquainted
with me, and liking my style of playing, invited me to their lodge, where
they gave me to drink, and tould me that if I would change my religion
and join them, and play their tun