g with his desperate weakness. His face was to the
ground; after a while he was still. In alarm the widow stooped over him:
she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light
showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce
believe it of this manly fellow. Yet it proved true; she saw the very
tears. He was crying at his helplessness.

"Oh, my darling boy!" she burst out; "what have they done to ye? the
cowards they are! but do now have pity on a woman, and let me get some
creature to lift you to a bed, dear. And don't flap at me with your hand
like a bird that's shot. You're quite, quite sensible, I know; quite
sensible, dear; but for my sake, Robert, my Harry's good friend, only
for my sake, let yourself be a carried to a clean, nice bed, till I get
Dr. Bean to you. Do, do."

Her entreaties brought on a succession of the efforts to rise, and at
last, getting round on his back, and being assisted by the widow, he
sat up against the wall. The change of posture stupified him with a
dizziness. He tried to utter the old phrase, that he was sensible, but
his hand beat at his forehead before the words could be shaped.

"What pride is when it's a man!" the widow thought, as he recommenced
the grievous struggle to rise on his feet; now feeling them up to the
knee with a questioning hand, and pausing as if in a reflective wonder,
and then planting them for a spring that failed wretchedly; groaning and
leaning backward, lost in a fit of despair, and again beginning, patient
as an insect imprisoned in a circle.

The widow bore with his man's pride, until her nerves became afflicted
by the character of his movements, which, as her sensations conceived
them, were like those of a dry door jarring loose. She caught him in her
arms: "It's let my back break, but you shan't fret to death there, under
my eyes, proud or humble, poor dear," she said, and with a great pull
she got him upright. He fell across her shoulder with so stiff a groan
that for a moment she thought she had done him mortal injury.

"Good old mother," he said boyishly, to reassure her.

"Yes; and you'll behave to me like a son," she coaxed him.

They talked as by slow degrees the stairs were ascended.

"A crack o' the head, mother--a crack o' the head," said he.

"Was it the horse, my dear?"

"A crack o' the head, mother."

"What have they done to my boy Robert?"

"They've,"--he swung about humorously, weak as he w