CRESSY MCKINSTRY.  Belle of Tuolumne County, California; pretty, saucy and illiterate.  She conceives the idea of getting an education, and attends the district school, breaking an engagement of marriage to do this; bewitches the master, a college graduate, and confesses her love for him, but will not be “engaged:” 

“I don’t know enough to be a wife to you just now and you know it.  I couldn’t keep a house fit for you and you couldn’t keep me without it....  You’re only a dandy boy, you know, and they don’t get married to backwood Southern girls.”

After many scrapes involving perils, shared together, and much love-making, he is stunned one morning to learn that Cressy is married to another man, whom she had feigned not to like.—­Bret Harte, Cressy (1889).

CRETE (Hound of), a blood-hound.—­See Midsummer Night’s Dream, act iii. sec. 2.

  Coupe le gorge, that’s the word; I thee defy again,
  O hound of Crete!

Shakespeare, Henry V. act ii. sc. 1 (1599).

Crete (The Infamy of), the Minotaur.

  [There] lay stretched
  The infamy of Crete, detested brood
  Of the feigned heifer. 
Dante, Hell, xii. (1300, Cary’s translation).

CREVECOUR (2 syl.).  The count Philip de Crevecour is the envoy sent by Charles “the Bold,” duke of Burgundy, with a defiance to Louis XI., king of France.

The Countess of Crevecour, wife of the count.—­Sir W. Scott, Quentin Durward (time, Edward IV.).

CRIB (Tom), Thomas Moore, author of Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress (1819).

CRILLON.  The following story is told of this brave but simple-minded officer.  Henry IV., after the battle of Arques, wrote to him thus: 

Prends-toi, brave Crillon, nous avons vaincu a Arques, et tu n’y etais pas.

The first and last part of this letter have become proverbial in France.

When Crillon heard the story of the Crucifixion read at Church, he grew so excited that he cried out in an audible voice, Ou etais tu, Crillon? ("What were you about, Crillon, to permit of such atrocity!”)

[Illustration:  symbol] When Clovis was told of the Crucifixion, he exclaimed, “Had I and my Franks been by, we would have avenged the wrong, I warrant.”

CRIMO’RA AND CONNAL.  Crimora, daughter of Rinval, was in love with Connal of the race of Fingal, who was defied by Dargo.  He begs his “sweeting” to lend him her father’s shield, but she says it is ill-fated, for her father fell by the spear of Gormar.  Connal went against his foe, and Crimora, disguised in armor, went also, but unknown to him.  She saw her lover in fight with Dargo, and discharged an arrow at the foe, but it missed its aim and shot Connal.  She ran in agony to his succor.  It was too late.  He died, Crimora died also, and both were buried in one grave.  Ossian, Carric-Thura.