"Oh, 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 sarmons 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."
"Oh 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. Oh, 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 conviction than any
of us, followed one of them home after he had been preaching, and
begged him to give her God, 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.
