midnight
`` If yo 're axed , yo ' con say I 'm gone to look fur a job . My day has na coom yet , but it 's on th ' way . '' Since then he had only returned once or twice , and his visits had always been brief and unexpected , and at night . The first time he had startled Joan by dropping in upon her at midnight , his small bundle on his knob-stick over his shoulder , his clothes bespattered with road-side mud . He said nothing of his motive in coming -- merely asked for his supper and ate it without much remark . `` I ha ' na had luck , '' he said . `` Luck 's not i my loine ; I wur na born to it , loike some foak .