At last Edward, who was rather afraid of Anders and his jokes on his sportsmanship, whispered to me,
"Can't you make him tell us some more stories? I'll be bound Osborn's Pipe is not the only tale he has in his scrip."
Not a bad thought, but Anders was one of those free spirits who must be stalked as warily as a reindeer. I felt that if I asked him outright he might betake him to his Norse pride and say he was no story-teller. "If I wanted stories I had better ask some of the old women down in the dales." It was not the first time I had unsealed unwilling lips, and I knew the way.
"That was a good story about Osborn's Pipe, and I owe you one for it, Anders. Come listen to one of mine, and let the lassies listen to it too. It's not long."
THE HAUNTED MILL.
"Once on a time, there was a man who had a mill by the side of a force, and in the mill there was a brownie. Whether the man, as is the custom in most places, gave the brownie porridge and ale at Yule to bring grist to the mill, I can't say, but I don't think he did, for every time he turned the water on the mill, the brownie took hold of the spindle and stopped the mill, so that he couldn't grind a sack.
"The man know well enough it was all the brownie's work, and at last one evening, when he went into the mill, he took a pot full of pitch and tar, and lit a fire under it. Well! when he turned the water on the wheel, it went round awhile, but soon after it made a dead stop. So he turned, and twisted, and put his shoulder to the top of the wheel, but it was all no good. By this time the pot of pitch was boiling hot, and then he opened the trap-door which opened on to the ladder that went down into the wheel, and if he didn't see the brownie standing on the steps of the ladder with his jaws all a-gape, and he gaped so wide that his mouth filled up the whole trap-door.
"'Did you ever see such a wide mouth?' said the brownie.
"But the man was handy with his pitch. He caught up the pot and threw it, pitch and all, into the gaping jaws.
"'Did you ever feel such hot pitch?'