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.
