boy, who is now a grown man, was
hoisted up to one of the little windows, and he has always thought of
Mysy since as he saw her then for the last time. She lay sleeping, so
far as he could see, and Cree sat by the fireside looking at her.

Every one knew that there was seldom a fire in that house unless Mysy
was cold. Cree seemed to think that the fire was getting low. In the
little closet, which, with the kitchen, made up his house, was a corner
shut off from the rest of the room by a few boards, and behind this he
kept his peats. There was a similar receptacle for potatoes in the
kitchen. Cree wanted to get another peat for the fire without
disturbing Mysy. First he took off his boots, and made for the peats
on tiptoe. His shadow was cast on the bed, however, so he next got
down on his knees and crawled softly into the closet. With the peat in
his hands, he returned in the same way, glancing every moment at the
bed where Mysy lay. Though Tammy Gow's face was pressed against a
broken window he did not hear Cree putting that peat on the fire. Some
say that Mysy heard, but pretended not to do so for her son's sake,
that she realized the deception he played on her, and had not the heart
to undeceive him. But it would be too sad to believe that. The boys
left Cree alone that night.

The old weaver lived on alone in that solitary house after Mysy left
him, and by and by the story went abroad that he was saving money. At
first no one believed this except the man who told it, but there seemed
after all to be something in it. You had only to hit Cree's trouser
pocket to hear the money chinking, for he was afraid to let it out of
his clutch. Those who sat on dykes with him when his day's labour was
over said that the weaver kept his hand all the time in his pocket, and
that they saw his lips move as he counted his hoard by letting it slip
through his fingers. So there were boys who called "Miser Queery"
after him instead of Grinder, and asked him whether he was saving up to
keep himself from the workhouse.

But we had all done Cree wrong. It came out on his deathbed what he
had been storing up his money for. Grinder, according to the doctor,
died of getting a good meal from a friend of his earlier days after
being accustomed to starve on potatoes and a very little oatmeal
indeed. The day before he died this friend sent him half a sovereign,
and when Grinder saw it he sat up excitedly in his bed and pulled