Page:Christmas Fireside Stories.djvu/168

156 Legends of the Mill. " I can't say I have seen anything," said the old man. " The water has, to be sure, been shut off and turned on at times, when I have had a little nap in the mill during the night, and I have heard noises in the back-shed, but I have never seen anything. Folks don't believe in such beings nowadays," he continued, with an inquiring look towards me, " and therefore they daren't show them selves. Folks are too sensible and too well read in our days." " You are perhaps right there," I said, for I could perceive there was a meaning in his look, and I preferred that he should tell me some old stories rather than I should dispute his doubts or question his belief that civilization was a terror to brownies and other supernatural beings. " You are right to some extent in what you say. In the olden days people had a stronger belief in all kinds of witchery ; now they pretend not to believe in it, that they may be looked upon as sensible and educated people, as you say. But far up in the country, in the mountain districts, wc still often hear of fairies håving been seen, of their spiriting people away into the mountains, and such like. Now, Fil tell you a story," I continued, that I might give him some encouragement to start one ; " Fil tell you a story, which took place somewhere, but where and when I cannot exactly remember. "There was a man who had a flour-mill, close to a waterfall, and there was a mill-goblin in that mill. Whether the man used to give him Christmas cakes and beer, as they do in some places, I don't know, but I should think he didn't, for every time he went to grind his corn the goblin got hold of the tub-wheel and stopped the mill, and he couldn't get any corn ground. The man knew very well it was the goblin who had his hand in this, and one evening when he went to the mill, he took a big pot full of pitch tar with him and put it on the fire. He turned the water on to the wheel and the mill went for a while, but suddenly it stopped, as he expected it would. He seized a long pole and struck at the mill goblin round about the wheel, but all in vain. At last he opened the door which led out to the wheel, and there stood the mill-goblin in the door, gaping. His jaw was so big that it reached from the threshold up to the lintel.