“Can’t you read?”
“O no, yere hanner, I can’t read, neither can Tourlough nor his wife.”
“Well, learn to read as soon as possible. When you have got to America and settled down you will have time enough to learn to read.”
“Shall we be better, yere hanner, after we have learnt to read?”
“Let’s hope you will.”
“One of the things, yere hanner, that have made us stumble is that some of the holy women, who have come to our tent and read the Bible to us, have afterwards asked my aunt and me to tell them their fortunes.”
“If they have the more shame for them, for they can have no excuse. Well, whether you learn to read or not still eschew striopachas, don’t steal, don’t deceive, and worship God in spirit, not in image. That’s the best counsel I can give you.”
“And very good counsel it is, yere hanner, and I will try to follow it, and now, yere hanner, let us go our two ways.”
We placed our glasses upon the bar and went out. In the middle of the road we shook hands and parted, she going towards Newport and I towards Chepstow. After walking a few yards I turned round and looked after her. There she was in the damp lowering afternoon wending her way slowly through mud and puddle, her upper form huddled in the rough frieze mantle, and her coarse legs bare to the top of the calves. “Surely,” said I to myself, “there never was an object less promising in appearance. Who would think that there could be all the good sense and proper feeling in that uncouth girl which there really is?”