Ye niver seen a meetin’ quicker broke up than that wan. Half the men was on their feet in a minit, an’ the other half pullin’ thim down be the coat-tails. Iverybody was talkin’ at the wan time, some av thim swearin’ they’d been insulted, an’ others thryin’ to make pace.
Thin the wimmin begin to scrame an’ hould back men from fightin’ that had no notion av it at the start, an’ only begin to think av it whin they were sure they wouldn’t be let.
Altogether there was the makin’s of as fine a fight as iver ye seen in your life.
However, there was a lot of dacent elderly men on both sides, and wi’ arguin’ an’ perswadin’, and houldin’ back wan, an’ pushin’ out the other, the hall was redd without blows, an’, bit by bit, they all went home quiet enough.
But the Cramery Society was clane split. It wasn’t wee Billy so much; for whin people begin to think about it the next mornin’, there was more laughed at him than was angry; but the party feelin’ was up as bitther as could be.
The Nationalists was mad at themselves for givin’ in to go to a meetin’ in the Orange Hall, for fear it might be taken that they were weakenin’ about Home Rule; an’ the Orange party were just as afeard at the papers makin’ out that they were weakenin’ about the Union. Besides, the ould King William in the corner av the Hall had done no good.
I’m no party man, myself; but whin I see William Robinson, that has been me neighbour this twinty years, goin’ down the road on the Twelfth av July wi’ a couple av Orange sashes on, me heart doesn’t warm to him as it does av another day. The plain truth is, we were bate at the Boyne right enough; but some av us had more than a notion we didn’t get fair play at the fightin’; an’ between that and hearin’ about the batin’ iver since, the look of ould Billy on his white horse isn’t very soothin’.
Anyway, the two parties couldn’t be got to join again. The red-hot wans av both av thim had meetin’s, wee Billy leadin’ wan side, and Tammas McGorrian the other, an’ the nixt thing was that there was to be two Crameries.
The moderate men seen that both parties were makin’ fools av themselves, for the place wasn’t big enough for two; but moderate men are scarce in our parts, an’ they could do nothin’ to soothe matthers down. Whin the party work is on, it’s little either side thinks av the good av thimselves or the counthry either.
It’s “niver mind a dig yourself if ye get a slap at the other fellow.”