Up the hill came the group with the injured man in their midst, to all appearance dead. A great hush fell on the village as they passed slowly on, men in their shirt sleeves just as they had hurried in from the harvest field. The women and children stood at the doors with faces full of sympathy. They bore him in at the little gate and through the garden and up the stairs, and laid him on the bed. * * * * * For weeks Sam lay on his bed, whilst day and night Jennifer waited on him. The neighbours stopped the doctor to ask about him, and the answer was ever the same: "He'll pull through; he'll pull through," and the doctor tightened his mouth and nodded his head; "but he would have been a dead man long ago if it had not been for that brave little wife of his." Fracture of the skull and concussion of the brain, and a host of other ills, made it a desperate fight with death. But Jennifer fought and won. Even in his unconsciousness Sam seemed to know the touch of her hand, and it soothed him; and the tone of her voice, and the moaning ceased. But bit by bit their little fortune was swept away. The savings of those three or four years were quickly spent; the cows had to be sold, and the meadow given up; the pigs and fowls were parted with. The garden lay untended. And when, at last, the doctor had done with Sam, it was only to leave him an imbecile--helpless as a baby, and a great deal more troublesome--sometimes muttering to himself for hours together a round of unmeaning words; sometimes just crying all day long, and then again cross and peevish and perverse as any spoilt child. The cottage was given up; they could not afford the rent of that. Another was taken, the cheapest in all the village--one that was too bad for anybody else. Half a crown a week and a loaf of bread from the parish was all that came in to supplement Jennifer's poor earnings of sixpence a day in the fields. * * * * * It was some few years after this had happened that I came to know Jennifer. There she sat in the little chapel, her round and ruddy face without a wrinkle in it, all curves and dimples that were the settled homes of good humour and thankfulness; a face snugly surrounded by a black bonnet, set off with a clean white cap. Beside her were her two lads, their faces as clean and shining as plenty of soap and hard scrubbing could make them. You met her going home from the service, the short, round figure wrapped in a thick black shawl, trotting along with her hymn book in one hand and a big umbrella in the other, short and round like herself. The happy little lads went bounding before her, the three of them the very picture of gladness.