e had them bought, Mrs. Quin came down and when she looked at them she
knew them to be her own geese. "Give me back the money," she said. "I'd
be a fool if I did," said he, and he went away.'

Another neighbour says: 'They often made their camp in the boreen near
my house; but one of them never came into the house, and I never saw one
of them at Mass. One very hard morning I passed by them as I was
bringing in pigs to the fair of Gort. There they were, sleeping under an
ass-cart, quite happy and satisfied. They fight at night and make
friends again in the daytime; and they sell their wives to one another;
I've seen that myself.'

And an old man says: 'I think the tinkers are not the same as the rest
of us; I think they originated in themselves. They are very mirthful,
and they have no control; but sometimes there will be a tyrant among
them that is a good fighter, and they will obey him.

'They have no religion; and it might be true they don't believe in the
devil--but what of that? Aren't there many on your side and our own that
think there is no resurrection, but that we go straight to heaven at the
minute of death?

'They never go into any house; and there's a great many of them
wouldn't go in a house if they were asked. My father went one time from
Ballylee to Limerick; and there was a tinker at that time the Government
wanted to get information from; something about Bonaparte it was. And
they offered him a good lodging with a feather-bed in it to sleep on;
and he said if he slept one night on a feather-bed, he'd never be any
good after; that it was more wholesome to sleep outside on a bed of
rushes. They didn't get any information out of him after; though they
offered him good reward, he wouldn't give it to them.

'They have no marriage at all; but their women might be ten times better
than the rural women for all that, and true to their men. The women are
very smart at cooking. You'll see them make a fire by the roadside with
a bundle of straw and a bit of wood, and they'll put the pot down. What
goes into the pot? Well, how would I know? but the men are very handy,
and when they put their hand in the pot, believe me it doesn't go in
empty.

'They used to be prone to coining at one time; but the law of
transportation stopped that. And there's few of the police would like to
grabble with them. I saw four of the police trying to take one the other
day, and he bet them all; and it was a countryman got a hold of