e now,' cried Bess; 'nobody'll be friends with
me if father's transported.'

'We're thy friends,' answered Stephen, 'and thee has a Father in heaven
that cares for thee. Listen, Bess; it will do thee good, and poor old
grandfather no harm now. He was transported beyond the seas once; and no
one casts it up to him now, nor to us; and haven't we got friends? Cheer
up, Bess. Miss Anne says, maybe this very trouble will bring thy father
to repentance. He said he'd repent some time; and maybe this will be the
very time for him. And Miss Anne sends her kind love to thee and thy
mother, and she'll come and see thy mother as soon as she can leave the
master.'

Thus comforted, poor sorrowful Bess rose from the ground, and walked on
with them to Botfield. Most of the house doors were open, and the women
were standing at them in order to waylay them with inquisitive
questions; but Stephen's grave and steady face, and the presence of
Bess, who walked close beside him, as if there was shelter and
protection there, kept them silent; and they were compelled to satisfy
their curiosity with secondhand reports. Martha went on with Bess to her
own cottage to stay all night with her, and help her to console her
broken-hearted mother.

Though Martha was truly sorry for Black Thompson's family, she felt her
importance as one of the chief witnesses against him; especially as the
cinder-hill cabin was visited, not only by the gossips of Botfield, but
by more distinguished persons from all the farmhouses around; and her
thrilling narrative of her hazardous journey through Botfield along the
high road was listened to with greedy interest. In this foolish talking
she lost that true sympathy which she ought to have felt for poor Bess,
and forfeited the blessing which would have been given to her own soul.
But it was very different with Stephen in his lonely work upon the
mountains. There he thought over the crimes and punishment of Black
Thompson, until his heart was filled with an unutterable pity and
fellow-feeling both towards him and his family; and every night, as he
went home from his labour, he turned aside to the cottage, to read to
Bess and her mother some portion of the Scriptures which he had chosen
for their comfort, out of a pocket Bible given to him by Miss Anne.

About a fortnight after these events Stephen received a visitor upon the
uplands, where he was seeking a lamb that had strayed into a dwarf
forest of gorse-bushes, and