But they came out proudly--"with their tails up," said
one of their officers--after their baptism of fire.
The drum-and-fife band of the Munsters was practising in an old barn
on the wayside, and presently, in honor of visitors--who were myself
and another--the pipers were sent for. They were five tall lads, who
came striding down the street of Flemish cottages, with the windbags
under their arms, and then, with the fife men sitting on the straw
around them and the drummers standing with their sticks ready, they
took their breath for "the good old Irish tune" demanded by the
captain.
It was a tune which men could not sing very safely in Irish
yesterdays, and it held the passion of many rebellious hearts and the
yearning of them.
Oh, Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that's going round? The
shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground.
She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen; They're
hanging men and women there for wearing of the green.
Then the pipers played the "March of O'Neill," a wild old air as
shrill and fierce as the spirit of the men who came with their Irish
battle-cries against Elizabeth's pikemen and Cromwell's Ironsides.
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