Nina bathed his face and hands and Jack bandaged them, and by and by he fell asleep. When he awoke he asked for some gruel, and then he remembered Brindle Cow.
"Poor creature!" said Simon. "I wish I had kept her even if she was getting old; but it is too late now, for, of course, the butcher has her."
Just then, "Moo, moo!" was heard outside, and for the first time since he left her at the stream Jack thought of Brindle Cow.
"Why, there she is now!" he said. "I did not get to the butcher's this morning because Nina called me before I had gone beyond the woods.
"I'll never sell her," said Simon. "Go out, Jack, and give her a good dinner, and to-night see that she has a nice bed of straw in the barn."
That day for dinner Simon told Nina to have a good meat stew and that Nina and Jack were to eat all they wanted.
Jack told Nina what had happened at the stream in the woods and asked her if she thought the Fairy had anything to do with the accident that happened to Simon.
"Of course not," said Nina. "Fairies always do good, not bad things, and, besides, Simon must have been burnt at the very time you saw the Fairy, and I wonder if you really did see a Fairy, after all. Are you sure you did not fall asleep and dream it all?"
Jack was quite sure he did not dream it, but never again did Brindle Cow speak—at least, Jack never heard her if she did.
But when Simon recovered from his burns and was quite well again something did happen, and whether the Field Fairy and Brindle Cow had anything to do with it Jack and Nina never knew.