"Why, sir, indeed we all flatter ourselves, even such a poor humble being as I am, that we can see all the working of the puppets, little and big, but people are often mistaken who have better means of coming at the truth than I have: all the way, sir, that I have to know what is doing in the world is by the newspapers, which my young master there (looking at Frederick) kindly brings me, and my notion is, from spelling and putting together, that though I may never live to see the day when such a matter will come to pass, a revolution is hanging over these countries as sure as you are sitting there opposite to me." "That would be a strange event, Ned," said I, "as the consequences of those changes to which I alluded, I meant the change from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge." "Sir, I mean the same thing, though I do not give such good names to what I think undeserving of them." "Why, Ned," "said Bentley, "I know a place within three miles of this spot where you go three or four times a-week to teach: how does your conduct consist with what you have said?"--"It fits like a pea in the pod, sir," replied Ned; "I go to give what instruction I can to a few poor things who are longing to know God through His word; and as some are too young, and others too weak to climb this rugged height, I go to the foot of the mountain to meet them; and don't you think that I would teach every man, woman, and child, if I could make them learn the road to heaven?" I told him that Nature herself seemed to point a finger to the course of education in Ireland, for that such surprising faculties as I found in the poor sons and daughters of Erin could never have been designed by their Creator to lie dormant. "Young man, we know," replied Ned, "nothing of God's designs, and your reason for teaching right hand and left, is about as just as if you were to burn a hay-rick in your neighbour's farm, and when you were asked why you did such mischief, you were to answer, that a heap of combustibles was lying convenient, and that as combustibles were by nature made to be burned, you thought proper to set them on fire. But, sir, my notion is, that the gentry are, as fast as they can, changing sides with the mob of the country, for they are winding off at the upper end of the spindle as much as they are winding on at the bottom, and so it will be only one thing in the place of another after all. Education seems to be declining amongst the _heads_ of the community, as much as it is flourishing amongst the _tails_, and, before long, it will be found that the tails will take the post where the heads are now."