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"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 staring, and have always kept themselves clane from striopachas.
"Would you have any objection to tell me all you do?" "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?" "Oh no! I never do anything in that line; I would be burnt first. I wonder you should dream of such a thing."
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?"
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.
"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."
"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 Oh dear!" "It's a dreadful thing I admit, but the other things are quite as bad; you should do none of them."
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?"
"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.
"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."
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