"Oh, well and indeed, your honour."--"Go along, go along," said the
Squire, and away went the men.

"They seem honest bumpkins enough," observed Lester.

"It would have pleased me better," said Aram, "had the speaker of the two
particularized less; and you observed that he seemed eager not to let his
companion speak; that is a little suspicious."

"Shall I call them back?" asked the Squire.

"Why it is scarcely worth while," said Aram; "perhaps I over refine. And
now I look again at them, they seem really what they affect to be. No, it
is useless to molest the poor wretches any more. There is something,
Lester, humbling to human pride in a rustic's life. It grates against the
heart to think of the tone in which we unconsciously permit ourselves to
address him. We see in him humanity in its simple state; it is a sad
thought to feel that we despise it; that all we respect in our species is
what has been created by art; the gaudy dress, the glittering equipage,
or even the cultivated intellect; the mere and naked material of Nature,
we eye with indifference or trample on with disdain. Poor child of toil,
from the grey dawn to the setting sun, one long task!--no idea elicited--
no thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the machine of
others--the serf of the hard soil! And then too, mark how we scowl upon
his scanty holidays, how we hedge in his mirth with laws, and turn his
hilarity into crime! We make the whole of the gay world, wherein we walk
and take our pleasure, to him a place of snares and perils. If he leave
his labour for an instant, in that instant how many temptations spring up
to him! And yet we have no mercy for his errors; the gaol--the transport-