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Borrow, George Henry, 1803-1881

"Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery"

"
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. 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.


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