Into that head, by dint of hammering at it day and night, his mother had instilled the ‘idea’ that he was to renounce his old habits, playmates, and plays, as surely as he was to fling away his old clothes, and henceforth to think of nothing but of being a faithful diligent man-of-all-works to his reverence the priest. In fine, in words suited to his capacity, he was told that he was to forget the idle gorsoon, and to put on the sarvint boy. For a week this song was sung to him in a variety of tones, without producing any other effect on Jimmy than causing a grin. At last, ‘Ov _all_ works, mother?’ quoth he. ‘Bedad I thinks I’ll have somethin’ to do. Howsomdever, since I _must_ be a sarvint, why it’s best to begin.’ And thenceforward he laid his whole soul to the task; and so earnest and anxious was he, that in little more than three months he could do a few things decently without having me perpetually pinned to his tail, and in a year he went through the routine of household affairs without a blunder, not one thought or wish interfering with his business. Like the churning-horse of my neighbour Giles, he plodded over the dull ground allotted for him without grumbling, and without being conscious that any other mode of life might produce equal happiness. Happy being! contented, stolid Jimmy Delany! Things were going on thus smoothly with master and man, while the mother was inwardly and outwardly fretting. She expected by this time that her boy was taking a short cut towards being a learned man, if not a _janius_ all out; and great was her dismay when she heard the truth! So she comes to me with her humble petition ‘that I would be plaised to enlighten her gorsoon’s brains.’ ‘I fear that is what no _mortal_ can do,’ said I, ‘but I will do my best for him.’ Indeed, I was attached to the creature, and I thought it my duty to endeavour to stretch his capacity if I could; and, accordingly, I bought a Primer, and set him to learn his letters. Oh! it was the unfortunate moment that I did so! From that hour the man has never been himself; the four walls of my quiet house have been eternally frightened with strange sounds; and I have never had a comfortable meal since. A new ‘idea’ displaced the old one:--‘he was no longer a _sarvint_, but a _schollard_;’ business was nearly suspended; and when strong custom, or my stronger reproofs, so far prevailed that he could not help going over the most urgent of the household employments, it was not with even-handed justice; for, let the _left_ hand be occupied as it might, the _right_ was sure to clutch _the book_; so that every day and every hour he might be taken for a clumsy leaden personification of Knowledge extending the volume to the uninitiated, till the strange sounds issuing from the blubber lips destroyed the illusion.