"I am out of work, and so I am likely to remain, I suppose. It is up-hill work to have nothing better to look to than this comes to--and it is very hard to be owed ever so much money, which I have earned by as honest labor as was ever given in exchange for money. I have heard you read--'_cursed is he that keepeth a man's wages all night by him until the morning_,'--but I don't know what would be said to him that can keep them for months, letting a poor man starve, without thinking of him for a moment. When rent day comes round, then it must be rent, or turn out; we hav'nt got no power in our hands; but I say 'tis a very hard case." "It is very hard, I allow, Martin," said Mr. Ware, "but the wrong done you does not excuse your sitting here idle; have you been trying for work?" "Yes, I've been to all the farmers round; but there's none to be got." "How do you manage to get on then?" "We live as we can," answered the man, sullenly. "Well, my good fellow," said Mr. Ware, kindly, "make another effort, and do not sit down here idle all day. I hear that Colonel Hargrave is coming to England shortly, if, indeed, he is not already here." "We have heard that so often," growled Martin, "that we cannot put any faith in it. He'll never come to do us any good, I reckon." Mr. Ware offered him a little more advice as to exerting himself, and then, with a small gratuity to his wife, left the cottage with his nephew. "He is a notorious poacher," said he, as they walked on, "and his excuse is, if they do not give us our own money, we must take an equivalent. It is difficult to preach while poverty and starvation are opposed to the maxims we would wish to inculcate. I wish something could make the Colonel believe the actual state of things; but I do sometimes fear he entirely forgets us. In that neat-looking dwelling," he continued, after a pause, "lives a woman, who has hitherto obtained her livelihood by supplying the poor inhabitants with bread and other necessaries; for some months past, however, Rogers, the bailiff, has found excuses to withhold the wages from most of the workmen engaged in repairing the premises at Aston, and they have been obliged to live upon credit, which this poor woman has been persuaded to give them--in consequence, she tells me, she is nearly ruined; and from the confusion in which her money matters stand, she has fallen quite into a state of melancholy. I went to her yesterday, so that I will not ask you to see her to-day; but we will come in here," he said, at the same time lifting the latch of a door, which opened into a small room, more like some hovel, attached to a tenement which contained several families.