As soon as she had opened her eyes, Alec and Curly hurried off to get
out their boat. They met the miller in an awful rage; for the sudden
onset of twice the quantity of water on his overshot wheel, had set his
machinery off as if it had been bewitched, and one old stone, which had
lost its iron girdle, had flown in pieces, to the frightful danger of
the miller and his men.
"Ye ill-designed villains!" cried he at a venture, "what gart ye close
the sluice? I s' learn ye to min' what ye're aboot. Deil tak' ye for
rascals!"
And he seized one in each brawny hand.
"Annie Anderson was droonin' aneath the waste-water," answered Curly
promptly.
"The Lord preserve 's!" said the miller, relaxing his hold "Hoo was
that? Did she fa' in?"
The boys told him the whole story. In a few minutes more the back-fall
was again turned off, and the miller was helping them to get their boat
out. The _Bonnie Annie_ was found uninjured. Only the oars and
stretchers had floated down the stream, and were never heard of again.
Alec had a terrible scolding from his mother for getting Annie into
such mischief. Indeed Mrs Forbes did not like the girl's being so much
with her son; but she comforted herself with the probability that by
and by Alec would go to college, and forget her.
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