Tales from the Fjeld Part 2

"'Did you ever feel such hot pitch?'

"Then the brownie let the wheel go, and yelled and howled frightfully.

Since then he has been never known to stop the wheel in that mill, and there they ground in peace."

Yes! Anders had heard a story something like that, only it was about a water kelpy, not a brownie. Brownies, he declared, never did folk much harm, except lazy maids and idle grooms, but kelpies were spiteful, and hated men. Besides, brownies hated water, they couldn't bear to cross a running stream; then how could they live in a mill? No, it was a kelpy, and his grandmother had told him so.

Then, after a pause, he went on, "But I know another story of a mill which was not canny, and I'll tell it if you like."

We were all ears, and Anders began:--

THE HAUNTED MILL.

"This story, too, I heard of my grandmother, who knew stories without end, and more, she believed them. This mill was not in these parts, it was somewhere up the country; but wherever it was, north of the Fells, or south of the Fells, it was not canny. No one could grind a grain of corn in it for weeks together, when something came and haunted it. But the worst was that, besides haunting it, the trolls, or whatever they were, took to burning the mill down. Two Whitsun-eves running it had caught fire and burned to the ground.

"Well, the third year, as Whitsuntide was drawing on, the man had a tailor in his house hard by the mill, who was making Sunday clothes for the miller.

"'I wonder, now,' said the man on Whitsun-eve, 'whether the mill will burn down this Whitsuntide, too?'

"'No, it shan't,' said the tailor. 'Why should it? Give me the keys: I'll watch the mill.'

"Well, the man thought that brave, and so, as the evening drew on, he gave the tailor the keys, and showed him into the mill. It was empty, you know, for it was just new-built, and so the tailor sat down in the middle of the floor, and took out his chalk and chalked a great circle round about him, and outside the ring all round he wrote the Lord's Prayer, and when he had done that he wasn't afraid--no, not if Old Nick himself came.

"So at dead of night the door flew open with a bang, and there came in such a swarm of black cats you couldn't count them, they were as thick as ants. They were not long before they had put a big pot on the fireplace and set light under it, and the pot began to boil and bubble and as for the broth, it was for all the world like pitch and tar.

"'Ha! ha!' thought the tailor, 'that's your game, is it!'

"And he had hardly thought this before one of the cats thrust her paw under the pot and tried to upset it.

"'Paws off, p.u.s.s.y,' said the tailor, 'you'll burn your whiskers.'

"'Hark to the tailor, who says "Paws off, p.u.s.s.y," to me,' said the cat to the other cats, and in a trice they all ran away from the fireplace, and began to dance and jump round the circle; and then all at once the same cat stole off to the fireplace and tried to upset the pot.

"'Paws off, p.u.s.s.y, you'll burn your whiskers,' bawled out the tailor again, and again he scared them from the fireplace.

"'Hark to the tailor, who says "Paws off, p.u.s.s.y"' said the cat to the others, and again they all began to dance and jump round the circle, and then all at once they were off again to the pot, trying to upset it.

"'Paws off, p.u.s.s.y, you'll burn your whiskers,' screamed out the tailor the third time, and this time he gave them such a fright that they tumbled head over heels on the floor, and began dancing and jumping as before.

"Then they closed round the circle, and danced faster and faster: so fast at last that the tailor's head began to turn round, and they glared at him with such big ugly eyes, as though they would swallow him up alive.

"Now just as they were at the fastest, the same cat which had tried so often to upset the pot, stuck her paw inside the circle, as though she meant to claw the tailor. But as soon as the tailor saw that, he drew his knife out of the sheath and held it ready; just then the cat thrust her paw in again, and in a trice the tailor chopped it off, and then, pop! all the cats took to their heels as fast as they could, with yells and caterwauls, right out at the door.

"But the tailor lay down inside his circle, and slept till the sun shone bright in upon the floor. Then he rose, locked the mill, and went away to the miller's house.

"When he got there, both the miller and his wife were still abed, for you know it was Whitsunday morning.

"'Good morning,' said the tailor, as he went to the bedside, and held out his hand to the miller.

"'Good morning,' said the miller, who was both glad and astonished to see the tailor safe and sound, you must know.

"'Good morning, mother!' said the tailor, and held out his hand to the wife.

"'Good morning,' said she; but she looked so wan and worried; and as for her hand, she hid it under the quilt; but at last she stuck out the left. Then the tailor saw plainly how things stood, but what he said to the man and what was done to the wife, I never heard."

"But I can tell you, Anders," I broke in: "she was burnt for a witch, and, do you know, over in Scotland we have the same story; only we have the end. She tried on the Boot till her feet were crushed, and Morton's Maiden hugged her till her ribs cracked, and her fingers were fitted to the thumbscrews till they were all jelly. All this to make her own that she was a witch, and at last, when she owned it, she was burnt at Edinburgh, in the days of King James the Sixth, and seven other carlines with her."

Having unsealed Anders' lips, I was not going to let him stop, so I told the story of _Whittington and his Cat_, and I even got him and the la.s.sies to understand the awful importance of the Lord Mayor of London.

After Anders and the la.s.sies had crossed and blessed themselves over and over again at that wonderful story, Anders said,--

"Heaven help us, we have no Lord Mayors in Norway; the sheriff is good enough for us, and trouble enough he gives us sometimes; but we have a story, the end of which is as like your Lord Mayor's story as one pea is like another, and here it is, only we call it

THE HONEST PENNY.

"Once on a time there was a poor woman who lived in a tumble-down hut far away in the wood. Little had she to eat, and nothing at all to burn, and so she sent a little boy she had out into the wood to gather fuel.

He ran and jumped, and jumped and ran, to keep himself warm, for it was a cold gray autumn day, and every time he found a bough or a root for his billet, he had to beat his arms across his breast, for his fists were as red as the cranberries over which he walked, for very cold. So when he had got his billet of wood and was off home, he came upon a clearing of stumps on the hillside, and there he saw a white crooked stone.

"'Ah! you poor old stone,' said the boy; 'how white and wan you are!

I'll be bound you are frozen to death;' and with that he took off his jacket, and laid it on the stone. So when he got home with his billet of wood his mother asked what it all meant that he walked about in wintry weather in his shirtsleeves. Then he told her how he had seen an old crooked stone which was all white and wan for frost, and how he had given it his jacket.

"'What a fool you are!' said his mother; 'do you think a stone can freeze? But even if it froze till it shook again, know this--everyone is nearest to his own self. It costs quite enough to get clothes to your back, without your going and hanging them on stones in the clearings,'

and as she said that, she hunted the boy out of the house to fetch his jacket.

"So when he came where the stone stood, lo! it had turned itself and lifted itself up on one side from the ground. 'Yes! yes! this is since you got the jacket, poor old thing,' said the boy.

"But, when he looked a little closer at the stone, he saw a money-box, full of bright silver, under it.

"'This is stolen money, no doubt,' thought the boy; 'no one puts money, come by honestly, under a stone away in the wood.'

"So he took the money-box and bore it down to a tarn hard by and threw the whole h.o.a.rd into the tarn; but one silver pennypiece floated on the top of the water, "'Ah! ah! that is honest,' said the lad; 'for what is honest never sinks.'

"So he took the silver penny and went home with it and his jacket. Then he told his mother how it had all happened, how the stone had turned itself, and how he had found a money-box full of silver money, which he had thrown out into the tarn because it was stolen money, and how one silver penny floated on the top.

"'That I took,' said the boy, 'because it was honest.'

"'You are a born fool,' said his mother, for she was very angry; 'were naught else honest than what floats on water, there wouldn't be much honesty in the world. And even though the money were stolen ten times over, still you had found it; and I tell you again what I told you before, every one is nearest to his own self. Had you only taken that money we might have lived well and happily all our days. But a ne'er-do-weel thou art, and a ne'er-do-weel thou wilt be, and now I won't drag on any longer toiling and moiling for thee. Be off with thee into the world and earn thine own bread.'"

"So the lad had to go out into the wide world, and he went both far and long seeking a place. But wherever he came, folk thought him too little and weak, and said they could put him to no use. At last he came to a merchant, and there he got leave to be in the kitchen and carry in wood and water for the cook. Well, after he had been there a long time, the merchant had to make a journey into foreign lands, and so he asked all his servants what he should buy and bring home for each of them. So, when all had said what they would have, the turn came to the scullion, too, who brought in wood and water for the cook. Then he held out his penny.

"'Well, what shall I buy with this?' asked the merchant; 'there won't be much time lost over this bargain.'

"'Buy what I can get for it. It is honest, that I know,' said the lad.