To return to the St. Patrick’s Day processions.  I used to look forward to them with delight in my childhood, and, even now, cannot help lingering lovingly on their memory.  They were splendid displays, which I can remember much better than many things which occurred, so to speak, but yesterday.

“Our street,” which was close to Russell Street, Rodney Street, and other thoroughfares through which the procession passed, was by no means what you would call an Irish street.  Indeed, the most influential man in it was a retired sea captain named Jamieson, who, if not an Orangeman “all out,” was certainly at one time an Orange sympathiser.  He and my mother often had political discussions, which usually ended in fierce quarrels, and when he would swear he would have us “run out of the street,” she used to threaten to bring up the men from the docks and leave not a stone upon a stone of his house.  Whether it was through his being impressed by her terrible earnestness as a member of the Church militant, or whatever else was the reason, Jamieson in the end became a Catholic, and died a most edifying death.

Before his conversion, however, as well as after—­Jamieson to the contrary notwithstanding—­“our street” always took a lively and neighbourly interest in the St. Patrick’s procession, and used to turn out to a man, to a baby it would, perhaps, be more correct to say, for was not one of the chief sights of the procession their decent neighbour, Timothy, or, as he was more generally called, “Thade” Crowley, the pork butcher, at the corner?  There were splendid pictures and devices on the banners—­I can see them all most vividly now—­St. Patrick, Brian Bora, Sarsfield, O’Connell, the Irish Wolf Dog, with the motto “Gentle when stroked, fierce when provoked,” and harps and shamrocks galore, but Thade Crowley was in all our eyes the finest figure in the procession.

Among his greatest admirers were a Jewish family named Hyman, who lived next door to him.  Though the Jews are supposed to hold what was Crowley’s stock-in-trade in abomination, the two old ladies—­Mrs. Crowley, who used to say she was of “Cork’s own town and God’s own people,” and Mrs. Hyman, who came from Cork, too, though, needless to say, without a drop of Irish blood in her veins—­were great cronies.

As a consequence, the Hymans were among the most eager of the spectators to get the first glimpse of honest Thade Crowley as he walked in front of his own particular lodge of the Hibernians.  He was a portly, well-built man, of ruddy complexion, and open, genial countenance.  He wore buckskin breeches, top boots, green tabinet double-breasted waistcoat, bottle-green coat with brass buttons, and beaver hat.  The Crowleys were very popular in the neighbourhood, as they never had but a kindly word for everybody.

When I was a small boy, about 9 or 10 years old, I often listened with delight to Mrs. Crowley, who had a fluent tongue, expatiating on the glories of her native city—­