At the head of the procession were two bands a good deal mixed up
together. I at once recognized the uniform of the Loyal True Blue Fife
and Drums, whose members were my supporters to a man, and who possess
many more drums than fifes. The bright-green peaked caps of the other
players told me that they were the Wolfe Tone Invincible Brass Band.
It usually played tunes favourable to O’Donoghue. Vittie did not own
a band. If his supporters had been musical, and if there had been any
tunes in the world which expressed their political convictions, there
would, no doubt, have been three bands in the procession. The True Blues
and the Wolfe Tones were, when they passed me, playing different tunes.
In every other respect the utmost harmony prevailed between them. The
chief drummer of the True Blues and the cornet player of the Wolfe
Tones stopped just under my windows to exchange instruments, an act of
courtesy which must be unparalleled in Irish history. I was not able
to hear distinctly what sort of attempt my supporter made at the cornet
part of “God Save Ireland.” But O’Donoghue’s friend beat time to
“The Protestant Boys” on the drum with an accuracy quite surprising
considering that he cannot often have practised the tune. Behind the
bands closely surrounded by torch bearers came a confused crowd of men
dragging and pushing a wagonette, from which the horses had been taken.
In the wagonette were Lalage and Hilda. Lalage was standing up in the
driver’s seat, a most perilous position. She had in one hand a large
roll of white ribbon, the now well-known symbol of the Association
for the Suppression of Public Lying, and in her other hand a pair of
scissors. She snipped off bits of the ribbon and allowed them to go
fluttering away from her in the wind. The crowd scrambled eagerly for
them, and it was plain that the association was enrolling members in
hundreds. Hilda seemed less happy. She was crouching in the body of the
wagonette and looked frightened. Perhaps she was thinking of her mother.
I crept back to bed when the procession had passed and felt deeply
thankful that I was laid up with influenza. Lalage’s meeting was,
without doubt, an unqualified success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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