When the miller saw her coming, he gaes slowly back to his ain room, an’ in she comes after him, and, “Bless me, bless your bairn, my gude auld father!—you that’s been father an’ mither, an’ a’ to her since before she could guide hersel! Bless your Jeanie, an’ she’ll hae naething mair to wish for!”
“How like she’s to her mither!” said the miller in a low voice; “but ye’ll no mind her sae weel, Jeanie. I mind weel, that on the night before she dee’t, an’ when I was like ane distrackit, ‘It’s the will o’ Providence, John,’ says she, ‘and we maun a’ bow till’t; but dinna ye grieve sae sair for my loss, John; for young as she is yet, my heart tells me that I’m leaving ane ahint me, wha’ll be a blessing an’ a comfort to ye when I’m awa;’ and ne’er were truer words spoken,” continued the miller, “for ne’er frae that day to this was her father’s heart wae for Jeanie; sae bless you, my bairn, an’ may a’ that’s gude attend ye, an’ may ye be spared to be a comfort and an example to a’ around ye, lang, lang after your auld father’s head’s laid low.” An’ as he raised her frae her knees he kissed her, an’ then turned slowly frae her, an’ Jeanie slippit saftly awa.
On the neist Friday the twa marriages took place, an’ a’ the folk sat down to a gude an’ a plentifu’ dinner, an’ there was an unco deal o’ fun an’ laughing gaed on. An’ when dinner was ower and thanks returned, the miller cried for a’ to fill a fu’, fu’ bumper. “An’ now,” says he, “we’ll dring King James’s health, an’ lang may he and his rule ower us.”
This led them to speak o’ his coming there as John Murdoch; and some o’ them that hadna heard the hale story, askit the miller to tell’t.
“Wi’ a’ my heart,” quoth the miller; “but first open that cage-door, Jeanie, for it’s no fitting that it, wha had sae muckle share in’t, should be a prisoner at sic a time.”
An’ the robin cam fleein’ out to the miller’s whistle, an’ lightit on the table beside him.
When the miller was dune wi’ the story, “An’ now, frien’s,” said he, “ye may learn this frae it, that it’s aye best to do as muckle gude and as little ill as we can. But there’s a time for a’thing,” continued he; “sae here, Jeanie, my dawtie, put ye by the robin again; and now, lads, round wi’ the whisky.”
They a’ sat crackin’ an’ laughin’ thegither, till it was time for Geordie an’ his wife to be settin’ aff for the Hope, and the rest o’ the folk gaed wi’ them, an’ a’ was quiet at the mill again.
In twa year after that, William was married to Elie Allison. And when he was three score and ten, the miller yielded up his spirit to Him that gied it; an’ when King James heard that he was dead, he said publicly, that he had lost a gude subject and an honest man, and that he wished there was mair folk in the kintra like John Marshall.
And James succeeded to his father; an’ after James cam James’s sons, and their sons after them for never sae lang; and, for aught I ken to the contrair, there’s a Marshall in the Mill o’ Doune at this day.—“The Odd Volume.”