Then the miller took the old man into the mill, and, shutting the door, told him, in a trembling voice, the whole sad story.
“I’ve found out,” he said, “that the wrong way is a hard way, and I’m in that way yet, but I long to get out of it. I’d give this mill—yes, and all that is in it—were that needful to make me feel myself once more an honest man. I have set it all aside. Those bags over there contain every pound I have ever taken. But I shall never know a happy moment till I see them hauled away from here and put into your barn.”
“My dear young friend,” said the farmer, drawing his sleeve across his eyes, “I care nothing for the flour, yet it is mine, and it is right I should take it. Carry it out yourself and load it on the wagon, and I’ll soon put it where you want it to be. I believe you have been taught, by the best of teachers, such a lesson as you’ll never forget. And be assured that after it I will never fear to trust you. Take my word for it, too, that no one but wife—and she can keep a secret—shall ever hear of this.”
The next Sunday the miller went to church, and, whatever else he might dread to hear about, it was not the eighth commandment. And the following week, and for many a week afterward, he read his newspaper as he did in former times—all through, skipping nothing, from beginning to end.
The way out of the path of uprightness is smooth and easy; the way back to it, rough and difficult. The one is ever open to the erring, but the other is never closed against the penitent.
