We were a village going by train to a rallying-ground. Our lodge and our band went with us. The big drummer had his cottage at the end of the row, and every now and then came such a roll of drumming as I have heard many a time in an African village. It wakened memories of palms and fevers and alligators. The fifes were being tested, flights of notes fell from the air. The ear was tickled and then cheated, and then another flight tickled it again. Round a bend of the road came a rolling and a shrilling, and then banners waving in the sun. Other villages were marching in to join us to the rallying-ground. The train came in, and I was lifted up on the first wave of a swelling tide, and sent into a carriage through the gaping door. First me, and after me the world. There surged in men with pikes, there surged in men with Bibles upon poles, there surged in children munching sweets, there surged in women with babies and without babies; and when from my corner I looked to the door, and wondered when would some one put out a hand and close it, there followed in other men with drums and other men with banners, and ever more men with spare drumheads, and ever more children munching sweets. The engine jumped from a standing position, the carriages jumped after it, in our carriage we rolled a single time forward and backward, and then we were jerking through the country, past birds I could not hear, past flowers I could not smell, under skies I could not see. The stations came. We stopped at every one of them. Nobody got out; but another fife and drum band got in, and other men with Bibles upon sticks, and other men with pikes, and other men with banners, and other fluttered women, and other munching children. We left a following on the platform waving us on our way. Then we jerked over the final mile or two, and sounds of drum and fife, and glimpses of road where banners waved and bands played told us of Orange lodges rallying to the trysting-ground. The trysting-ground of Ballynahinch was full to the brim, and certain of the people who had arrived there were also full to the brim. The day was another of those blazing days this spendthrift summer was so prodigal of, and many a wise man passed between swing doors, passed several times between swing doors, before falling into line for the procession. As there were ever more lodges coming in from the country, and ever more wise men passing in between swing doors, those who were already inside could find no way out, and whether they ever got out, or whether they are sitting there to this day, I am not able to tell. All things start at last, and the procession moved on its way. Across the high street, at a spot where a hill began and went winding up, was an archway, which seemed to be the holiest ground. From the arch dangled all sorts of symbols, most of which I have forgotten: one was a wooden ladder; these same symbols the stout Orangemen wore in silver upon their sashes.