society. We hae nae cause to
be anxious aboot a' thing bein' dune re-respectable aince we're gone.
It was Jess 'at insisted on oor joinin': a' the wisest things I ever
did I was put up to by her."

I parted from Hendry, cheered by the doctor's report, but the old
weaver died a few days afterwards. His end was mournful, yet I can
recall it now as the not unworthy close of a good man's life. One
night poor worn Jess had been helped ben into the room, Tibbie Birse
having undertaken to sit up with Hendry. Jess slept for the first time
for many days, and as the night was dying Tibbie fell asleep too.
Hendry had been better than usual, lying quietly, Tibbie said, and the
fever was gone. About three o'clock Tibbie woke and rose to mend the
fire. Then she saw that Hendry was not in his bed.

Tibbie went ben the house in her stocking-soles, but Jess heard her.

"What is't, Tibbie?" she asked, anxiously.

"Ou, it's no naething," Tibbie said, "he's lyin' rale quiet."

Then she went up to the attic. Hendry was not in the house.

She opened the door gently and stole out. It was not snowing, but
there had been a heavy fall two days before, and the night was windy.
A tearing gale had blown the upper part of the brae clear, and from
T'nowhead's fields the snow was rising like smoke. Tibbie ran to the
farm and woke up T'nowhead.

For an hour they looked in vain for Hendry. At last some one asked who
was working in Elshioner's shop all night. This was the long
earthen-floored room in which Hendry's loom stood with three others.

"It'll be Sanders Whamond likely," T'nowhead said, and the other men
nodded.

But it happened that T'nowhead's Bell, who had flung on a wrapper, and
hastened across to sit with Jess, heard of the light in Elshioner's
shop.

"It's Hendry," she cried, and then every one moved toward the workshop.

The light at the diminutive, yarn-covered window was pale and dim, but
Bell, who was at the house first, could make the most of a cruizey's
glimmer.

"It's him," she said, and then, with swelling throat, she ran back to
Jess.

The door of the workshop was wide open, held against the wall by the
wind. T'nowhead and the others went in. The cruizey stood on the
little window. Hendry's back was to the door, and he was leaning
forward on the silent loom. He had been dead for some time, but his
fellow-workers saw that he must have weaved for nearly an hour.

So it came about that for the last f