158 Legends of the Mill. screaming and screeching, and as she ran out of the mill, she cried : " ' Father, father, Self has burnt me ! ' • ' Well, if you have burnt yourself, you have only yourself to blame,' said a voice in the hill." "It was a good thing for the woman it didn't fare worse with her," said the old man with the grey beard ; " she might have been burnt, both she and the mill, for where I come from I heard tell of something similar, which happened there long ago. There was a farmer who had a mill that was burnt down two Whitsun-nights in succession. The third year he had a tailor staying with him before Whitsuntide, making new clothes for the holidays. " ' I wonder if anything will happen to the mill this year ? ' said the farmer. ' Perhaps it will burn to-night too ! ' " ' No fear of that,' said the tailor ; 'give me the key and I*ll look after the mill.' " The farmer was well pleased with that, and when the evening camc the tailor got the key and went down into the mill. It was almost empty, as it had only just been finished. He sat down in the middle of the floor, took his chalk out and marked a large ring around him, and round about this he wrote the Lord's Prayer, and then he did not feel afraid even if Old Nick himself should come. " Towards midnight the door flew suddenly open, and in rushed such a number of black cats that the whole room swarmed with them. They were not long in getting a pot on the fire, and thcn they put more and more wood on, till the pot, which was full of pitch-tar began to boil and sputter. " ' Ho, ho ! ' said the tailor to himself, ' that's the way you do it, eh ? ' and no sooner had he spoken, than one of the cats put her paw behind the pot and was about to upset it. " ' Psht ! eat ! You'll burn yourself/ said the tailor. "' Psht ! eat! You'll burn yourself! says the tailor to me,' said the eat to the other cats, and away they ran from the fire, and began jumping and dancing round the ring ; but very soon the eat stole over to the fire again with the intention of upsetting the pot.
