Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 4).pdf/332

 should be more at leisure; and all her eloquence was ineffectual, either to awaken his curiosity, or to excite his benevolence, by intimations of the importance, or of the haste, of the business which she wished to communicate. "Ay, girl, ay," he would reply; "by and by will do just as well."

But by and by came not! When she endeavoured to catch a moment, at the hour of breakfast, the whole day, he would cry, was as good as thrown away, if a man lost a moment of his morning: yet if she solicited his hearing in the evening, he would cordially offer her some bread and cheese, and beer; but rise from them himself, heavy and sleepy, to go to bed; saying, "Hark y', my girl; when you've worked as hard as a farmer, you'll be as glad of your night's rest."

If she sought him in the middle of the day, he was always surrounded by his family, and by labourers, from whom he would never step apart; telling her to