“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.”