Wild Wales Part 106

"Why I sells needles, as I said before, and sometimes I buys things of servants, and sometimes I tells fortunes."

"Do you ever do anything in the way of striopachas?"

"O, no! I never do anything in that line; I would be burnt first. I wonder you should dream of such a thing."

"Why surely it is not worse than buying things of servants, who no doubt steal them from their employers, or telling fortunes, which is dealing with the devil."

"Not worse? Yes a thousand times worse; there is nothing so very particular in doing them things, but striopachas-O dear!"

"It's a dreadful thing I admit, but the other things are quite as bad; you should do none of them."

"I'll take good care that I never do one, and that is striopachas; them other things I know are not quite right, and I hope soon to have done wid them; any day I can shake them off and look people in the face, but were I once to do striopachas I could never hold up my head."

"How comes it that you have such a horror of striopachas?"

"I got it from my mother and she got it from hers. All Irish women have a dread of striopachas. It's the only thing that frights them; I manes the wild Irish, for as for the quality women I have heard they are no bit better than the English. Come, yere hanner, let's talk of something else."

"You were saying now that you were thinking of leaving off fortune-telling and buying things of servants. Do you mean to depend upon your needles alone?"

"No; I am thinking of leaving off tramping altogether and going to the Tir na Siar."

"Isn't that America?"

"It is, yere hanner; the land of the west is America."

"A long way for a lone girl."

"I should not be alone, yere hanner; I should be wid my uncle Tourlough and his wife."

"Are they going to America?"

"They are, yere hanner; they intends leaving off business and going to America next spring."

"It will cost money."

"It will, yere hanner; but they have got money, and so have I."

"Is it because business is slack that you are thinking of going to America?"

"O no, yere hanner; we wish to go there in order to get rid of old ways and habits, amongst which are fortune-telling and buying things of sarvants, which yere hanner was jist now checking me wid."

"And can't you get rid of them here?"

"We cannot, yere hanner. If we stay here we must go on tramping, and it is well known that doing them things is part of tramping."

"And what would you do in America?"

"O we could do plenty of things in America-most likely we should buy a piece of land and settle down."

"How came you to see the wickedness of the tramping life?"

"By hearing a great many sermons and preachings, and having often had the Bible read to us by holy women who came to our tent."

"Of what religion do you call yourselves now?"

"I don't know, yere hanner; we are clane unsettled about religion. We were once Catholics and carried Saint Colman of Cloyne about wid us in a box; but after hearing a sermon at a church about images, we went home, took the saint out of his box and cast him into a river."

"O it will never do to belong to the Popish religion, a religion which upholds idol-worship and persecutes the Bible-you should belong to the Church of England."

"Well, perhaps we should, yere hanner, if its ministers were not such proud violent men. O, you little know how they look down upon all poor people, especially on us tramps. Once my poor aunt, Tourlough's wife, who has always had stronger convictions than any of us, followed one of them home after he had been preaching, and begged him to give her G.o.d, and was told by him that she was a thief, and if she didn't take herself out of the house he would kick her out."

"Perhaps, after all," said I, "you had better join the Methodists-I should say that their ways would suit you better than those of any other denomination of Christians."

"Yere hanner knows nothing about them, otherwise ye wouldn't talk in that manner. Their ways would never do for people who want to have done with lying and staling, and have always kept themselves clane from striopachas. Their word is not worth a rotten straw, yere hanner, and in every transaction which they have with people they try to cheat and overreach-ask my uncle Tourlough, who has had many dealings with them.

But what is far worse, they do that which the wildest calleen t'other side of Ougteraarde would be burnt rather than do. Who can tell ye more on that point than I, yere hanner? I have been at their chapels at nights and have listened to their screaming prayers, and have seen what's been going on outside the chapels after their services, as they call them, were over-I never saw the like going on outside Father Toban's chapel, yere hanner! Yere hanner's hanner asked me if I ever did anything in the way of striopachas-now I tell ye that I was never asked to do anything in that line but by one of them folks-a great man amongst them he was, both in the way of business and prayer, for he was a commercial traveller during six days of the week and a preacher on the seventh-and such a preacher. Well, one Sunday night after he had preached a sermon an hour and a half long, which had put half-a-dozen women into what they call static fits, he overtook me in a dark street and wanted me to do striopachas with him-he didn't say striopachas, yer hanner, for he had no Irish-but he said something in English which was the same thing."

"And what did you do?"

"Why I asked him what he meant by making fun of a poor ugly girl-for no one knows better than myself, yere hanner, that I am very ugly-whereupon he told me that he was not making fun of me, for it had long been the chief wish of his heart to commit striopachas with a wild Irish Papist, and that he believed if he searched the world he should find none wilder than myself."

"And what did you reply?"

"Why I said to him, yere hanner, that I would tell the congregation, at which he laughed and said that he wished I would, for that the congregation would say they didn't believe me, though at heart they would, and would like him all the better for it."

"Well, and what did you say then?"

"Nothing at all, yere hanner; but I spat in his face and went home and told my uncle Tourlough, who forthwith took out a knife and began to sharp it on a whetstone, and I make no doubt would have gone and stuck the fellow like a pig, had not my poor aunt begged him not on her knees.

After that we had nothing more to do with the Methodists as far as religion went."

"Did this affair occur in England or Wales?"

"In the heart of England, yere hanner; we have never been to the Welsh chapels, for we know little of the language."

"Well, I am glad it didn't happen in Wales; I have rather a high opinion of the Welsh Methodists. The worthiest creature I ever knew was a Welsh Methodist. And now I must leave you and make the best of my way to Chepstow."

"Can't yere hanner give me G.o.d before ye go?"

"I can give you half-a-crown to help you on your way to America."

"I want no half-crowns, yere hanner; but if ye would give me G.o.d I'd bless ye."

"What do you mean by giving you G.o.d?"

"Putting Him in my heart by some good counsel which will guide me through life."

"The only good counsel I can give you is to keep the commandments; one of them it seems you have always kept. Follow the rest and you can't go very wrong."

"I wish I knew them better than I do, yere hanner."