Chapter II

It was an evening toward the end of August, and the harvest was being gathered in. The fields on every side were dotted with the tented sheaves piled up as the custom is in the "catching" weather of the West, one sheaf reversed on the top of the cluster, so as to form a kind of roof. The long shadows of the shocks fell across the fields in the evening light. All the country was beautiful with that rich restfulness which comes in the autumn, as if the earth had finished its work. The glories of the sunset gave the sky a hundred delicate tints of gold and purple.

Here and there the women brought the sheaves, whilst the men piled them on the wagons. Away over the hill country in the east the great harvest moon was rising.

Jennifer, busy as ever, had got her two little ones settled for the night, and now was preparing a dainty supper for Sam's return; the savoury smell of it filled the place.

Then it was that, as to Job of old, one came breathless to the house with sad tidings. Sam had slipped from the stack and fallen on his head.

"Is--he--dead?" gasped Jennifer.

No, he was not dead; but he had not spoken since his fall, and was quite unconscious. A messenger had been sent for the doctor, and the men were bringing Sam home, and would be here in a few minutes.

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.

Yet it was almost wicked of Jennifer to look so comfortable, when all the parish knew that there was not a poor body for miles around that had so much trouble. She certainly had no business to be anything but the most mournful and melancholy soul that ever went grumbling along the highroad, if you can measure people's happiness by their circumstances.

Follow her as she turns down this narrow lane, skilfully picking her way in the mud. At the end of the lane is her cottage. One half of it has fallen, the cob-walls have given way, and the thatch hangs over the ruins. It was a wonder that what was standing did not follow, for there were cracks in the walls through which the wind whistled, and there were broken places in the roof through which the rain dripped.

But within was a greater sorrow than any that you could find outside. As Jennifer opens the door she hurries across the uneven floor to the rough settle by the fire. There is her husband--poor Sam!

As now she comes near and lays her hand upon his shoulder, the dull face is turned toward her with a smile. He tries to say something, but the mouth only opens without a word, and the tears fill his eyes. Jennifer bends and kisses him tenderly. "Poor dear," she says, as she gently strokes the hands that hold her own. "Poor dear, was he wanting us home again?"

Presently she slips the hand away so skilfully that her husband does not seem to know it, and takes off her bonnet and shawl.

The lads meanwhile have set the things for the Sunday dinner. It did not need much setting. On the rickety table was placed a knife--they had but one. There were three slices of bread, a thick round off the loaf, and on each slice a bit of cheese; "Double Gloucester" was, I think, the local name of it. The one big mug was filled from a large earthen pitcher.

Jennifer herself had set the kettle down by the wood fire, for if she had a weakness it was her cup of tea. But there was not much promise of any water boiling in a hurry; the tiny spark was almost lost in the big fireplace, a hearth opening into the chimney, and so constructed that a great deal more cold seemed to come down than heat went up.

The little family group stood and bent their heads in devout thanksgiving to the heavenly Father, and then the hungry lads fell to. As for Jennifer herself it seemed as if she never got her dinner at all. All her concern was to try and tempt her husband's appetite with a piece of bread and butter daintily cut; and there was for him, too, a drop of milk. Yet even her hypocrisy could not manage to keep up her happy looks on nothing.

This was Sunday: a day indeed of rest and gladness. Other days she had to be up and about early to get the little lads their breakfast; and to make them ready for school; and to set her husband by the fire. Then she herself was off with the dawn, and sometimes before, to work all day in the fields. Her rough dress was stained earth colour from head to foot; a sack was tied round the skirts which were tucked well up out of the way. A big sun-bonnet protected her more often from the bleak winds and bitter rains than from the sun. From dawn till dusk she worked for sixpence a day; and then came home thanking God right heartily for the three shillings a week. And on that Jennifer managed to feed and clothe her household, and to pay the rent and to keep up her good looks.

The fact is, Jennifer was as we have said, a philosopher, and had made a great discovery. It was certainly worthy to be set alongside of the most famous inventions; and like many of them it had the one great defect--so few knew how to use it. Jennifer had little, it is true. She was, so to speak, but a moulting bird, half starved and shivering in the dreariest and dullest of cages--that is, if you looked at what _was_. But Jennifer found another world, in which she had a boundless freedom and strength, and here she went soaring like an eagle right up into the sun. It was what _wasn't_ that she made so much of.

You pitied her, and spoke mournfully about her husband, as if he were a burden and worry. But Jennifer never seemed to hear it, and certainly could not see it.

"Poor dear," she said, "I can mind the day he asked me to be his wife. I did jump. And all the maidens in the parish would have liked him. When they heard about it they all went wondering whatever he could see in a poor little plain thing like me; but none of them wondered so much as I