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 tunes, they would make it answer my
purpose. Well, your hanner, without much stickling I gave up my Popery,
joined the Orange lodge, learned the Orange tunes, and became a regular
Protestant boy, and truly the Orange men kept their word, and made it
answer my purpose. O the meat and drink I got, and the money I made by
playing at the Orange lodges and before the processions when the Orange
men paraded the streets with their Orange colours. And O, what a day for
me was the glorious first of July when with my whole body covered with
Orange ribbons I fiddled "Croppies Lie Down"--"Boyne Water," and the
"Protestant Boys" before the procession which walked round Willie's
figure on horseback in College Green, the man and horse all ablaze with
Orange colours. But nothing lasts under the sun, as your hanner knows;
Orangeism began to go down; the Government scowled at it, and at last
passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing up the figure on the
first of July, and walking round it. That was the death-blow of the
Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered it, but began to despond
and dwindle, and I with them, for there was scarcely any demand for
Orange tunes. Then Dan O'Connell arose with his emancipation and repale
cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there were
Papist processions and mobs, which made me afraid to stir out, lest
knowing me for an Orange fiddler, they should break my head, as the boys
broke my leg at Donnybrook fair. At length some of the repalers and
emancipators knowing that I was a first-rate hand at fiddling came to me,