"Sure you never seen a well dhrest fiddler yet," said Larry.
"Indeed, and now you remind me, I believe not," said the old man. "I suppose they all get more kicks than ha'pence, as the saying is."
"Divil a many kicks Houligan gets; he's a great favorite intirely."
"Why is he in such distress then?" asked Coogan.
"Faith he's not in disthress at all; he's welkim everywhere he goes, and has the best of atin' and dhrinkin' the place affords, wherever he is, and picks up the coppers fast at the fairs, and is no way necessiated in life; though indeed it can't be denied, as he limps along there, that he has a great many ups and downs in the world."
This person, of whom the preceding dialogue treats, was a celebrated fiddler in "these parts," and his familiar name of Hoppy Houligan was acquired, as the reader may already have perceived, from his limping gait. This limp was the consequence of a broken leg, which was one of the consequences of an affray, which is the certain consequence of a fair in Tipperary. Houligan was a highly characteristic specimen of an Irish fiddler. As Larry Lanigan said, "You never seen a well dhrest fiddler yet;" but Houligan was a particularly ill fledged bird of the musical tribe. His corduroys have already been hinted at by Larry, as well as his coat, which had lost half the skirt, thereby partially revealing the aforesaid corduroys; or if one might be permitted to indulge in an image, the half skirt that remained served to produce a partial eclipse of the disc of corduroy. This was what we painters call picturesque. By the way, the vulgar are always amazed that some tattered remains of anything is more prized by the painter than the freshest production in all its gloss of novelty. The fiddler's stockings, too, in the neglected falling of their folds round his leg, and the whisp of straw that fringed the opening of his gaping brogues, were valuable additions to the picture; and his hat—But stop,—let me not presume;—his hat it would be a vain attempt to describe. There are two things not to be described, which, to know what they are, you must see.
These two things are Taglioni's dancing and an Irish fiddler's hat. The one is a wonder in action;—the other, an enigma in form.
Houligan's fiddle was as great a curiosity as himself, and, like its master, somewhat the worse for wear. It had been broken some score of times, and yet, by dint of glue, was continued in what an antiquary would call "a fine state of preservation;" that is to say, there was rather more of glue than wood in the article. The stringing of the instrument was as great a piece of patchwork as itself, and exhibited great ingenuity on the part of its owner. Many was the knot above the finger-board and below the bridge; that is, when the fiddle was in the best order; for in case of fractures on the field of action, that is to say, at wake, patron, or fair, where the fiddler, unlike the girl he was playing for, had not two strings to his bow; in such case, I say, the old string should be knotted, wherever it might require to be, and I have heard it insinuated that the music was not a bit the worse of it. Indeed, the only economy that poor Houligan ever practised was in the strings of his fiddle, and those were an admirable exemplification of the proverb of "making both ends meet." Houligan's waistcoat, too, was a curiosity, or rather, a cabinet of curiosities; for he appropriated its pockets to various purposes;—snuff, resin, tobacco, a clasp-knife with half a blade, a piece of flint, a doodeen,[[4]] and some bits of twine and ends of fiddle-strings were all huddled together promiscuously. Houligan himself called his waistcoat Noah's ark; for, as he said himself, there was a little of everything in it, barring[[5]] money, and that would never stay in his company. His fiddle, partly enfolded in a scanty bit of old baize, was tucked under his left arm, and his right was employed in helping him to hobble along by means of a black-thorn stick, when he was overtaken by the three travellers already named, and saluted by all, with the addition of a query, as to where he was going.
"An' where would I be goin' but to the berrin'?" said Houligan.
"Throth it's the same answer I expected," said Lanigan. "It would be nothing at all without you."