Having
satisfied himself that nothing particular was happening anywhere
within view, he gazed awhile at the sod he had turned over, and then
shaved the top off with his spade. Having straightened his back once
more, he began a survey of the superficial area of the next sod, and
at length proceeded to cut it in the same deliberate manner,
performing the same succeeding ceremonies. If he saw me, or heard me
approaching, he became at once very alert and diligent until I spoke
to him, then he stopped work at once. It was quite impossible for
him both to labour and to listen; nobody can do two things well at
the same time. But his greatest relief was in talking; he would
talk with anybody all day long if possible, and do nothing else; his
wages, of course, still running on. There is very little talk worth
paying for. I would rather give some of my best friends a fee to be
silent, than pay for anything they have to tell me. My gardener was
a most unprofitable servant; the only good I got out of him was a
clear knowledge of what the Government stroke meant, and the
knowledge was not worth the expense. He was in other respects
harmless and useless, and, although he had been transported for
stealing, I could never find that he stole anything from me. The
disease of larceny seemed somehow to have been worked out of his
system; though he used to describe with great pleasure how his
misfortunes began by stealing wall-fruit when he was a boy; and
although it was to him like the fruit
"Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.
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