I may not here particularize the breakings that followed. One misfortune succeeded another, till the miller broke also. All that he had was put under the hammer, and he wandered forth with his young wife a broken man.
Some years afterwards, I met with him in a different part of the country. He had the management of extensive flour mills. He was again doing well, and had money in his master’s hands. At last there seemed to be an end of the breakings. We were sitting together when a third person entered, with a rueful countenance.
“Willie,” said he, with the tone of a speaking sepulchre, “hae ye heard the news?”
“What news, now?” inquired the miller, seriously.
“The maister’s broken!” rejoined the other.
“An’ my fifty pounds?” responded my cousin, in a voice of horror.
“Are broken wi’ him,” returned the stranger. “Oh, gude gracious!” cried the young wife, wringing her hands, “I’m sure I wish I were out o’ this world!—will ever thir breakings be done!—what tempted my mother to buy me the cheena?”
“Or me to wear a black coat at your wedding,” thought I.
A few weeks afterwards a letter arrived, announcing that death had suddenly broken the thread of life of her aged father, and her mother requested them to come and take charge of the farm which was now theirs. They went. The old man had made money on the hills. They got the better of the broken china and of my black coat. Fortune broke in upon them. My cousin declared that omens were nonsense, and his wife added that she “really thought there was naething in them. But it was lang an’ mony a day,” she added, “or I could get your black coat and my mother’s cheena out o’ my mind.”
They began to prosper and they prosper still.