by Jess Smith
He left his campsite just as the sun was peeping over the horizon, and soon stood eager to take up his post as a miller’s apprentice. This sounded quite a title, but as day followed day it became all too clear that the young man did all the lifting and carrying, while his boss lay around doing nothing but shout orders. Jack hardly had time to eat his lunch, when every minute he was humping two heavy sacks of grain at a time up the long narrow steps to the threshing mill.
When the miller wasn’t trotting orders off his tongue, he did something else – he made fun of Jack’s tent and his traveller culture. But every week, for all his hard work he was paid a wage. This he proudly took home to his mother, who saved it in a leather pouch. One day that horse and wagon would be theirs, and they would be able to take the road again as all travellers long to do.
For all the constant name-calling, young Jack felt no ill-will towards the miller and refused to let his taunts bother him. After all, sticks and stones might break his bones, but words could never harm him.
Then one day, when the main milling season had begun, who should come to the mill with a barrowload of corn? None other than Tom, the tall man from the house on the edge of town with the red door. Jack rushed downstairs to carry Tom’s corn up for milling, but the miller shouted at him not to. Tom would do it himself. ‘Come on now, Tom, bring that corn up here,’ the miller whispered.
‘He’s deaf and won’t hear you. The best thing is to stand in front of him so he can read your lips,’ said Jack, pleased to help his friend. The miller sharply reminded him that Tom came every year, and he knew exactly how to treat him.
Standing in front of Tom, the miller covered his mouth and sang mockingly, ‘Tom, Tom, tell me dear, who has stolen your floppy ear? Can’t say who or can’t say when, turn around, come back again.’
Poor Tom repeatedly asked the miller what it was he was saying, because his hearing had became worse in the past year. Jack was furious, so he took Tom’s bag of corn and told him that he’d have the flour ready for him next day. The miller shouted at Jack, accusing him of spoiling his fun.
Next day it was blind Bill’s turn. He was pushing his barrow of corn with a white stick in his hand, and when the miller saw him he said, ‘Three blind mice, see how they run, eating Bill’s corn and having fun.’
Jack heard this and said, ‘Hello, Bill, is it your corn you want milled?’
Bill felt for Jack’s hand, saying, ‘Many thanks, Jack. It’s good to know you’re here.’
Taking hold of Bill’s sack of corn, Jack trudged upstairs with it. The miller shouted after him that if he spoiled his fun again, then he’d be sacked
Next day, Roger came to the mill and the same thing happened. The horrible miller made fun of him too. ‘Roger the dodger, can’t think right, sleeps in the day and works in the night.’
What a shame to see Roger standing there crying, because the miller had confused and upset him. Jack gave him Bill’s flour to take away as he’d done with Tom’s.
Next day it was tiny Mary’s turn. She could hardly push her barrow up the steps as she had been told to do by the miller. When she eventually got to the top he laughed and told her to take it back down, and then up again. ‘The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again, hee hee. Mary has no legs, just a pair of twisted pegs, she’s too small to throw a ball, what a fool is she, hee hee.’
Although he had been ordered not to help anyone again, Jack couldn’t stand by and watch such dreadful treatment. He told Mary to collect Roger’s flour and leave her load with him. ‘I’ll bring it to the house tomorrow,’ he told her.
The miller was furious, and tore strips off Jack for spoiling his annual fun. Jack told him it wasn’t right to poke fun at people who couldn’t help being different. The angry miller replied that it wasn’t his fault they were cripples, and anyway, what harm did it do. Jack said nothing else. He thought he had better work twice as hard, or the miller might sack him.
That night, though as he shared supper with Tizzy, she asked why he’d been so quiet lately. When he told her that the miller was a cruel man because of the way he’d treated his friends, people with special needs, she smiled, patted his hand and said, ‘That miller needs to be taught a lesson!’
After supper, Tizzy put her plan into motion. The first thing she did was to sow a miniature pair of bellows into the hem of her long coat. Then, in an inner pocket of her coat she deposited handfuls of river grit. She also hid a kettle iron in another concealed pocket. The last thing to be hidden away was a piece of wood about ten inches long.
Jack was astounded to see her do this, and even when they went to bed for the night he had no idea what his mother was planning.
At breakfast he found that she had risen an hour before him. ‘Now, son,’ she said, ‘I will take your place today. The miller will think that you are sick. I will tell him that I’ll do your work for half a day, because no doubt you’ll be there in the afternoon when you’re feeling better.’
‘But mother, I’m not ill.’
‘Of course not, but the miller doesn’t know that. Listen, now what I want you to do is to go to the house with the red door and bring everyone to the mill at exactly twelve noon. The cruel miller will have learned his lesson by then.’
Jack knew the ways of his mother, and smiled as he watched her head off towards the mill. That foolish man had no idea what Tizzy had up her sleeve to cure him once and for all of his bad behaviour.
‘Hello, miller, I’m Jack’s mother. He’s not well today, but frightened that he might lose his job if he’s not here to do it. I’ll fill his boots until he comes in at twelve. He assures me he’ll be feeling better by then.’
The miller laughed at the sight of the small, thin woman and said, ‘I need bags carried up those steps which are heavier than you.’ But Tizzy had carried heavier loads than those bags, so putting her shoulder under one, she heaved it up the stairs without any problem.
The miller was impressed. He showed her what the job was, then left her to it. As he went into his office, she called out to him, ‘Will I see the ghost? I’m not staying a minute in this place if it appears to me. Folk in these parts have told me this place is haunted.’ She watched as the miller stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around with a puzzled look on his face. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard rubbish like that,’ he said.
‘Oh, I’ve been told many times about the boy who floats around in the flour dust. People say that he can do all kinds of damage to the working wheels and threshing machinery.’ She could easily see her words were taken in by the miller. He was no fool, though, and so he laughed off her tale of woe. He strode into his office and slammed the door. It was then that Tizzy began her haunting of the mill. First, she threw a handful of river grit into the grinding wheels. The noise was dreadful: crit, grut, hork, prrrrittttit. She heard the miller’s door open, so threw in a little more grit. ‘Miller,’ she screamed, ‘what is that noise?’
He rushed into the threshing room and listened to the awful din. ‘I don’t know what it is, I’ve never heard the like of it.’ He stood and waited until the grit had travelled through the wheels and they sounded normal once more. Just as he was about leave, Tizzy pushed her heel down on the tiny bellows sown in her coat hem. Instantly, clouds of white dust floated upwards, giving an unearthly shape in the air. ‘Help,’ Tizzy screamed again, sending shivers down the miller’s spine. ‘What is that?’
Not waiting to find out, the miller ran off into his office and slammed the door. Tizzy followed on his heels. ‘Miller, you assured me that no haunting would take place in this building. But me being of the gypsy blood, I can feel that there is a ghost. Did you hear the awful sounds and see the ghostly dusts of flour?’ Before he could answer, she continued. ‘Butcher Brown told me the cause of it was the miller before you. He bullied his young helper. The poor lad couldn’t stand the treatment he got, so he threw himself into the wheels. Oh
miller, do you think he’s back to haunt us?’
Again she searched his face for fear. It wasn’t long in coming, ‘I had nothing to do with that. Why would he haunt me?’
Tizzy turned the door handle and said, ‘Do you know of anyone who taunts those less fortunate than himself?’
He lied, and said no he didn’t. Then, composing himself, he ordered her to get back to work. Tizzy obeyed, but instead of going upstairs she slipped downstairs and put the piece of wood between the machines that separated husk from corn. This meant that the bags were filled with husks instead of corn – the worst thing that could possibly happen to a miller. She then ran upstairs and dropped more river grit into the machinery.
‘Miller,’ she screamed yet again, ‘listen to the noise, and what on earth is going on downstairs?’
He rushed out of his office, with the gritting and crunching going on from the stones upstairs, and went downstairs to find a chaos of husks bagged and corn spilling everywhere.
‘What is happening?’ he shouted, rushing into the room where Tizzy was blowing eerie clouds of flour from her hem, drip-feeding river grit into the millstones and looking very afraid. ‘Is he here?’ asked the miller. She’d taken the opportunity to rub flour on her cheeks as she stood shivering amid the madness of the mill, and answered, ‘Listen, miller, if the working of this place stops we will know the ghost has come back. But the question is, is he seeking revenge?’
The miller was terrified and shaking with fear as he grabbed her arm. ‘Please don’t let him get me! I don’t mean what I do, it’s just harmless fun.’
Tizzy pretended not to know what he meant. The miller was a coward. Most bullies are. She calmed him, and said, ‘It might be that the ghost has gone. You go and put the kettle on, and I’ll finish my morning work.’
It was almost twelve o’clock as she put the final touch to her plan. When he’d gone off, she took the heavy kettle iron and dropped it into the machinery. There was a crunching sound which could be heard for miles. ‘Miller,’ Tizzy really was acting now, ‘he’s here for you!’
‘No, don’t let him take me!’ The miller left his office and was bounding downstairs when Tizzy halted him. ‘Wait, miller!’ she called, ‘he’ll find you no matter where you hide. What has to be done is for you to make an apology to the people who you have wronged. Only that will stop the ghost from stealing your soul!’
At that precise moment, coming up the road were Bill, Tom, Mary, Roger and Jack. The miller rushed up to them, shaking their hands, apologising repeatedly and swearing that from then on he’d be of exemplary behaviour. While this was taking place, Tizzy slipped away unseen.
From that day on, the cruel miller was known throughout the land as a gentleman; he was good to deal with and as fair a tradesman as anyone knew for miles. Jack’s wages were doubled and his workload halved. Never again would people deal with the miller without a handshake and a smile.
I think in England today there’s an old lady with her son who travel the back roads and byways in as fine a wagon as ever there is, drawn by a thoroughbred piebald horse.
17
DAVIE BOY AND THE DEVIL
Here is another Chapman tale. Time and place have no meaning for the characters of our tale, so let’s just say it happened a while ago, in this place and that.
Davie was a traveller boy who had, after many years, come wearily home from a seafaring life. On his return he was looking for his family. When he at last arrived at the campsite where he’d last seen them, he was sad to see it deserted, empty of old and young, with not even a dog or pony.
Sitting down on a stone, head in hand, he looked around the place where so many children had played and he felt heart-heavy. Scanning the site one last time before heading off, he noticed that where his tent usually stood was a mound of earth, perhaps only a foot wide. As he began to scrape away small handfuls from this mound, he recalled his father saying to him as a little boy, ‘If I have a message for you, I’ll bury it.’
And yes, this was a message from his father, because in the hollow he had dug lay a box. In it were three biscuits and a note. The note read: ‘If you be hungry, my son, don’t eat these biscuits until you have shared them.’
What a strange thing for his father to say, he thought. Still, his father was a wise man, and he had taken the time to conceal the box for Davie, who by the way was beginning to feel quite hungry. However, he would abstain from touching a morsel until he met somebody hungrier than himself.
This opportunity was just around the corner, because there he found an old bent-backed woman who asked him for a small crumb of food.
‘I only have three biscuits, old wife,’ he told her, ‘but you are welcome to share one with me.’
The wizened wife thanked him, ate the half biscuit and went away at a snail’s pace.
Soon he came upon another old lady and she too asked him for food. ‘There are only two biscuits in my bag,’ he said, ‘but I’ll share one with you.’ Again the elderly soul thanked him for his kindness and tottered off.
Two days later, his hunger had taken on a life of its own, and was gnawing at his innards. ‘I must eat this last biscuit,’ he thought in desperation, scanning the skyline in the hope that someone would appear. Just as he was putting the biscuit to his lips, a voice from the roadside reached his ears. ‘Help me, please, I am starving to death!’
Davie made over to a patch of rough grass to find, lying in a dreadful state, another ancient woman. This one was even sicklier than the others.
‘Help me to sit up, young man,’ she begged, ‘I have no strength in these bones.’ Davie bent down and gently seated her at the foot of a tree trunk.
‘Here, old wife, I have only one biscuit left, but you can have it all.’
‘Thank you, my good man,’ she said, handing him a woven sack. ‘You deserve much more than a biscuit.’
Davie thought the old woman was perhaps losing her marbles, for what good was an empty sack to one who was in the last throes of hunger?
‘When I am gone down that road, you open the sack and ask it for whatever you desire, but never for a thing of badness or greed.’
Those parting words left Davie totally confused. He scratched his head and sat down upon the same patch of grass that the old woman had sat on no more than minutes before. The hunger returned with a vengeance, eating steadily deep into his gut. He peered inside the sack, and making sure no one should see him and think his actions were those of a madman, whispered, ‘Can I please have food?’
And had he food? Did he ever! For there, to astonish his eyes, was a table bigger than one set in a banqueting hall, laden with every kind of eatable one could wish for. For someone who only had the merest crumbs of shared biscuits in his belly, was that not a feast! Davie ate until the last bite swelled in his throat and nearly choked the once hungry lad.
Then he lay down among the sun-warmed grass and slept like a baby – he slept and dreamed of steak and vegetables, puddings and creams, salmon and fruits, all produced from his old hessian sack. Yes, if ever there was a happy traveller man, then he’d be hard pushed to be more pleased than Davie.
Awakening much refreshed, he carefully folded the magic sack and tied it over his shoulder. Little knowing or caring where his wandering footsteps would lead him, Davie set off down the road that led to somewhere or nowhere.
By the day’s end he’d arrived at a town nestled within high stone walls, in the middle of which was a castle. ‘This is a strange place,’ he thought, noticing that there did not seem to be a single inhabitant.
As he looked all over for a place to shelter for the night, it soon became apparent that not one of the houses had a light or open shutters. Finding no one to ask about this, he went and knocked loudly at the castle gate. He waited some time, before at last the gate creaked open, and standing peering out from behind the heavy wooden gate was an old man who asked Davie his business.
‘I need digs for the night, where can I lodge?’
‘The Ancient One,’ asked our traveller lad, ‘and who might he be? And can he not eat food like the rest of us?’
The old man was rather taken aback by Davie’s response, and asked him where he had been for the last ten years and more. After realising Davie had been away on the high seas, the old man beckoned to him to come in and share his supper. Davie didn’t feel the need for food, having eaten enough to choke a horse, but thought it best not to offend the man and said a drink of tea would be fine.
They drank down tea and then Davie discovered what had been happening to the people of that place. He drew on his pipe, did the old man, stared into the fire and began. ‘One night, when Her Majesty the Queen was alone in her chambers, she made a wish that the King’s dungeon would be filled crammed full of gold.
Suddenly she turned to see a tiny man dancing in the flames of her fireplace. He said that if she wanted her wish to come true, then she had to bring two handmaidens over to the fire for his master. Without question, the greedy monarch did as he asked.
The most terrible thing happened next. A dozen little men, just like the first, grabbed the two innocent maidens and drew them into the fire, never to be seen again.’
He went on to tell how the King, on hearing this, was horrified at the evil greed of his wife, scolding her for dealing with the underworld. She said that, before he judged her, should they not see if the tiny man had kept his part of the bargain. So down into the dungeon they went, and yes, there it was, a mountain of sun-coloured gold filled every corner.
But the King was not impressed, and went into his wife’s chamber to see if the magic forces could be summoned. At once the little man appeared to him and said, if he wanted things to be as they used to be, then he must bring the Queen over to the fire. This he did, and in an instant she too was seized and swallowed up by the fiery imps.