"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.
"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."
"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.