the bank.
Scores o' folk had money in his hands. The interest was paid punctually,
and I hadna the least suspicion. Weel, I was looking ower the papers one
morning at breakfast, and I happened to glance at the list o' bankrupts
(a thing I'm no in the habit o' doing), when, mercy me! whose name
should I see but the very gentleman's that had my twa thousand pounds! I
had the paper in one hand and a saucer in the other. The saucer and the
coffee gaed smash upon the hearth! I trembled frae head to foot. 'Oh
David! what's the matter?' cried Jeannie. 'Matter!' cried I; 'matter!
I'm ruined!--we're a' ruined!' But it's o' nae use dwelling on this. The
fallow didna pay eighteenpence to the pound; and there was three
thousand gaen out o' my five! It was nae use, wi' a young family, to
talk o' living on the interest o' our money now. 'We maun tak' a farm,'
says I; and baith Jeannie and her mother saw there was naething else for
it. So I took a farm which lay partly in the Lammermoors and partly in
the Merse. It took the thick end o' eight hundred pounds to stock it.
However, we were very comfortable in it; I found mysel' far mair at hame
than I had been in Edinburgh; for I had employment for baith mind and
hands, and Jeannie very soon made an excellent farmer's wife. Auld
grannie, too, said she never had been sae happy; and the bairns were as
healthy as the day was lang. We couldna exactly say that we were making
what ye may ca' siller, yet we were losing nothing, and every year
laying by a little. There was a deepish burn ran near the onstead. We
had been about three years in the farm, and our youngest lassie was
about nine years auld. It was the summer time, and she had been paidling
in the burn, and sooming feathers and bits o' sticks; I was looking
after something that had gaen wrang about the threshin' machine, when I
heard an unco noise get up, and bairns screamin'. I looked out, and I
saw them runnin' and shoutin'--'Miss Jeannie! Miss Jeannie!' I rushed
out to the barnyard. 'What is't, bairns?' cried I. 'Miss Jeannie! Miss
Jeannie!' said they, pointing to the burn. I flew as fast as my feet
could carry me. The burn, after a spate on the hills, often cam awa in a
moment wi' a fury that naething could resist. The flood had come awa
upon my bairn; and there, as I ran, did I see her bonnie yellow hair
whirled round and round, sinking out o' my sight, and carried awa doun
wi' the stream. There was a linn about thirty yards frae wh