. 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.

END OF VOLUME II.

_Tubbs, Brook, & Chrystal, Printers, Manchester._

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of
Scotland, Volume 2, by Alexander Leighton

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