swered to
these names. I remember Cree best as a battered old weaver, who bent
forward as he walked, with his arms hanging limp as if ready to grasp
the shafts of the barrow behind which it was his life to totter uphill
and downhill, a rope of yarn suspended round his shaking neck, and
fastened to the shafts, assisting him to bear the yoke and slowly
strangling him. By and by there came a time when the barrow and the
weaver seemed both palsy-stricken, and Cree, gasping for breath, would
stop in the middle of a brae, unable to push his load over a stone.
Then he laid himself down behind it to prevent the barrow's slipping
back. On those occasions only the barefooted boys who jeered at the
panting weaver could put new strength into his shrivelled arms. They
did it by telling him that he and Mysy would have to go to the
"poorshouse" after all, at which the grey old man would wince, as if
"joukin" from a blow, and, shuddering, rise and, with a desperate
effort, gain the top of the incline. Small blame perhaps attached to
Cree if, as he neared his grave, he grew a little dottle. His loads of
yarn frequently took him past the workhouse, and his eyelids quivered
as he drew near. Boys used to gather round the gate in anticipation of
his coming, and make a feint of driving him inside. Cree, when he
observed them, sat down on his barrow-shafts terrified to approach, and
I see them now pointing to the workhouse till he left his barrow on the
road and hobbled away, his legs cracking as he ran.

It is strange to know that there was once a time when Cree was young
and straight, a callant who wore a flower in his buttonhole, and tried
to be a hero for a maiden's sake.

Before Cree settled down as a weaver, he was knife and scissor-grinder
for three counties, and Mysy, his mother, accompanied him wherever he
went. Mysy trudged alongside him till her eyes grew dim and her limbs
failed her, and then Cree was told that she must be sent to the
pauper's home. After that a pitiable and beautiful sight was to be
seen. Grinder Queery, already a feeble man, would wheel his grindstone
along the long high road, leaving Mysy behind. He took the stone on a
few hundred yards, and then, hiding it by the roadside in a ditch or
behind a paling, returned for his mother. Her he led--sometimes he
almost carried her--to the place where the grindstone lay, and thus by
double journeys kept her with him. Every one said that Mysy's death
would