To be sure, he could only earn little more than half his former wages, and his time for returning from his work would always be uncertain, and often very late.

But then, sorrowful consideration! there was no little Nan to provide for now, nor to fill up his leisure hours at home.

Martha was earning money for herself; and as yet the master had demanded no rent for their miserable cabin; so his earnings as a shepherd's boy would do until Mr.Lockwood came back.
Still upon the mountains he would be exposed to the bleak winds and heavy storms of the spring; while underground the temperature had always been the same.

No wonder that Miss Anne, when she looked at the boy's wasted and enfeebled frame, listened with unconcealed anxiety to his new project for gaining his livelihood; and so often as the spring showers swept in swift torrents across the sky, lifted up her eyes wistfully to the unsheltered mountains, as she pictured Stephen at the mercy of the pitiless storm..