"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, pussy,' said the tailor, 'you'll burn your whiskers.'
"'Hark to the tailor, who says "Paws off, pussy," 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, pussy, 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, pussy"' 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, pussy, 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
lassies to understand the awful importance of the Lord Mayor of London.
After Anders and the lassies 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