CHAP. I. TELFORD'S MOTHER. 295 



nessed in large towns was quite unknown in the valley, 

 there was poverty ; but it was honest as well as hopeful, 

 and no one felt ashamed of it. The farmers of the dale 

 were very primitive l in their manners and habits, and 

 being a warm-hearted, though by no means a demon- 

 strative race, they were kind to the widow and her 

 fatherless boy. They took him by turns to live with 

 them at their houses, and gave his mother occasional 

 employment. In spring-time she milked the ewes, in 

 summer she made hay, and in harvest she went a-shearing ; 

 so that she not only contrived to live, but to be cheerful. 

 The house to which the widow and her son removed, 

 at the Whitsuntide following the death of her husband, 

 was at a place called The Crooks, about midway between 



COTTAGE AT THE CROOKS. [By Percival Skelton.] 



Glendinning and Westerkirk. It was a thatched cot- 

 house, with two ends ; in one of which lived Janet 

 Telford (though more commonly known- by her own 

 name of Janet Jackson) and her son Tom, and in the 

 other her neighbour Elliot ; one door being common to 

 both. 



Young Telford grew up a healthy boy, and he was so 

 full of fun and humour that he became known in the 



1 It may be mentioned as a curious j one of which was in the house of Sir 



iaet that about the time of Telford 's ' James Johnstone of Wester Hall, and 



birth there were only two tea-kettles the other in that of Mr. Malcolm of 



in the whole parish of Westerkirk, the Burnibot. 



