forgotten; and when about midnight Black Thompson and Davies said
'Good-night' to him at his cottage door, calling him a brave fellow, and
giving him a fine young leveret, with the promise that he should have his
share of whatever money they received for their spoil, he entered his
dark home, where every one was slumbering peacefully, and, without a
thought of sorrow or repentance, was quickly asleep himself.




CHAPTER VIII.

STEPHEN AND THE GAMEKEEPER.


Martha's exclamation of surprise and delight at seeing the leveret was
the first sound that Stephen heard in the morning; but he preserved a
sullen silence as to his absence the previous night, and Martha was too
shrewd to press him with questions. They had not been unused to such fare
during their father's lifetime; and it was settled between them that she
should come down from the bilberry-plain early in the afternoon to make a
feast of the leveret by the time of Stephen's return from the pit.

All day long Stephen found himself treated with marked distinction and
favour by Black Thompson and his comrades, to some of whom he heard him
say, in a loud whisper, that 'Stephen 'ud show himself a chip of the old
block yet.' At dinner they invited him to sit within their circle, where
he laughed and talked with the best of them, and was listened to as if he
were already a man. How different to his usually hurried meal beside the
horses, that worked like himself in the dark, close passages, but did