“Didn’t I tell you so?” he exclaimed, with a reproachful look for her and a triumphant one for himself. “Why, instead of cheating us, he has cheated himself! What a pity it is for a woman to be suspicious!”
“Don’t brag too soon,” said his wife, piqued at his words; “you’d better put that off till we’ve weighed another grinding.”
The hungry mouths on the farm soon demanded a fresh supply of flour, and before many weeks had passed another load of wheat, after being weighed with extra care, was hauled to the mill. The miller, in the mean time having found some relief to his conscience by the little he had already done, was more eager than ever to carry out his plan and remove his burden altogether.
“It is certain,” he said, “they have not noticed anything unusual in the last grist. I might just as well hurry matters up a little. This time I’ll take out no toll at all, and after this will begin adding some of my own flour.”
Putting off other farmers who had brought their grain before him, the miller ground the old man’s wheat first, out of its turn, and sent him word it was ready. His wife, still smarting under the charge of being unjustly suspicious, hurried him away after it, and waited his return even more anxiously than she had for the former load. It came in due time, and was promptly laid on the scales as the other had been. But if she was surprised before, she was dumb with wonder now, and her husband—who, in truth, thought there was no better woman—seeing her embarrassment, was considerate enough to do no more than join in expressing his astonishment at the unlooked-for result. The flour was quietly put away in the store-room, and other matters requiring attention about the farmhouse were looked after.
That evening, just before bedtime, as they sat together in their old-fashioned comfortable kitchen, the farmer said to his wife:
“I’ve been thinking about that last grist. There must be something the matter with our young miller’s scales, and you know that we don’t want to take without paying for it what belongs to him. I mean to go over to the mill to-morrow on purpose to look into it.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do,” replied his wife, seriously. “Short of weight more than once I know the grinding was, and over-weight twice we both know it was; the thing keeps worrying my mind, and troubling me.”
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, the farmer harnessed up his horses and drove to the mill. The miller, who was standing in the door, looked surprised to see him when there was neither wheat to bring nor flour to haul away. And not only surprised: there came a look of apprehension over his face, for there is always a lurking fear of evil in the heart that is conscious of hiding some wrong.