CHAPTER XVII.
A NEW CALLING.
Stephen's recovery went on so slowly, that the doctor who attended him said it would not be fit for him to resume his underground labour for some months to come, if he were ever able to do so; and advised him to seek some out-door employment.

His old comrades began to find the weekly subscription to make up his wages rather a tax upon their own earnings; and Stephen himself was unwilling to be a burden upon them any longer.
As soon, therefore, as he was strong enough to bear the journey, he resolved to cross the hills again to Danesford, to see when Mr.Lockwood was coming home, and what help the clergyman left in charge of his duty could give to him.

Tim brought his father's donkey for him to ride, and went with him across the uplands.

The hard frosts and the snow were over, for it was past the middle of March; but the house at Fern's Hollow remained in precisely the same state as when little Nan died; not a stroke of work had been done at it, and a profound silence brooded over the place.

Perhaps the master had lost all pleasure in his ill-gotten possession! So changed was Stephen, though Danesford looked exactly the same, so tall had he grown during his illness, and so white was his formerly brown face, that the big boy who had shown him the way to the rectory did not know him again in the least.