"Oh, I see, you've forgot your bargain. Are you sorry for it?"

"Oh, ya--NO, I mean. I'll give you the money after your nap."

Next morning early Jack asked how he'd be employed that day. "You
are to be holding the plow in that fallow, outside the paddock." The
master went over about nine o'clock to see what kind of a plowman was
Jack, and what did he see but the little boy driving the bastes, and
the sock and coulter of the plow skimming along the sod, and Jack
pulling ding-dong agin' the horses.

"What are you doing, you contrary thief?" said the master.

"An' ain't I strivin' to hold this divil of a plow, as you told me;
but that ounkrawn of a boy keeps whipping on the bastes in spite of
all I say; will you speak to him?"

"No, but I'll speak to you. Didn't you know, you bosthoon, that when I
said 'holding the plow,' I meant reddening [plowing up] the ground?"

"Faith, an' if you did, I wish you had said so. Do you blame me for
what I have done?"

The master caught himself in time, but he was so stomached
[disconcerted], he said nothing.

"Go on and redden the ground now, you knave, as other plowmen do."

"An' are you sorry for our agreement?"

"Oh, not at all, not at all!"

Jack plowed away like a good workman all the rest of the day.

In a day or two the master bade him go and mind the cows in a field
that had half of it under young corn. "Be sure, particularly," said
he, "to keep Browney from the wheat; while she's out of mischief
there's no fear of the rest."

About noon he went to see how Jack was doing his duty, and what did he
find but Jack asleep with his face to the sod, Browney grazing near a
thorn-tree, one end of a long rope round her horns, and the other end
round the tree, and the rest of the beasts all trampling and eating
the green wheat. Down came the switch on Jack.

"Jack, you vagabone, do you see what the cows are at?"

"And do you blame me, master?"

"To be sure, you lazy sluggard, I do."

"Hand me out one pound thirteen and fourpence, master. You said if I
only kept Browney out of mischief, the rest would, do no harm. There
she is as harmless as a lamb. Are you sorry for hiring me, master?"

"To be--that is, not at all. I'll give you your money when you go to
dinner. Now, understand me; don't let a cow go out of the field nor
into the wheat the rest of the day."

"Never fear, master!" and neither did he. But the churl would rather
than a great deal he had not hired him.