“I am your affectionate mother,
“DOROTHY STAFFORD.”
All Stafford’s hopes were confounded by this letter: he put it into farmer Gray’s hands, without saying a word; then drew his chair away from Rose, hid his face in his hands, and never spoke or heard one word that was saying round about him for full half an hour; till, at last, he was roused by his friend Robin, who, clapping him on his back, said, “Come, Stafford, English pride won’t do with us; this is all to punish you for refusing to share and share alike with us in the mill of Rosanna, which is what you must and shall do now, for Rose’s sake, if not for ours or your own. Come, say done.”
Stafford could not help being moved. All the family, except Rose, joined in these generous entreaties; and her silence said even more than their words. Dinner was on the table before this amicable contest was settled, and Robin insisted upon his drinking a toast with him, in Irish ale; which was, “Rose Gray, and Rosanna-mill.”
The glass was just filled and the toast pronounced, when in came one of Gray’s workmen, in an indescribable perspiration and rage.
“Master Robin, master John! Master,” cried he, “we are all ruined! The mill and all—”
“The mill!” exclaimed every body starting up.
“Ay, the mill: it’s all over with it, and with us: not a turn more will Rosanna-mill ever take for me or you; not a turn,” continued he, wiping his forehead with his arm, and hiding by the same motion his eyes, which ran over with tears.
“It’s all that thief Hopkins’s doing. May every guinea he touches, and every shilling, and tester, and penny itself, blister his fingers, from this day forward and for evermore!”
“But what has he done to the mill?”