hey had got a little way up the hill
they met the herrings and pottage and bread, all pouring forth and
winding about one over the other, and the man himself in front of the
flood. "Would to heaven that each of you had a hundred stomachs! Take
care that you are not drowned in the pottage!" he cried as he went by
them as if Mischief were at his heels, down to where his brother dwelt.
Then he begged him, for God's sake, to take the mill back again, and
that in an instant, for, said he: "If it grind one hour more the whole
district will be destroyed by herrings and pottage." But the brother
would not take it until the other paid him three hundred dollars, and
that he was obliged to do. Now the poor brother had both the money and
the mill again. So it was not long before he had a farmhouse much finer
than that in which his brother lived, but the mill ground him so much
money that he covered it with plates of gold; and the farmhouse lay
close by the sea-shore, so it shone and glittered far out to sea.
Everyone who sailed by there now had to be put in to visit the rich man
in the gold farmhouse, and everyone wanted to see the wonderful mill,
for the report of it spread far and wide, and there was no one who had
not heard tell of it.

After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill.
He asked if it could make salt. "Yes, it could make salt," said he who
owned it, and when the skipper heard that, he wished with all his might
and main to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought,
if he had it, he would get off having to sail far away over the perilous
sea for freights of salt. At first the man would not hear of parting
with it, but the skipper begged and prayed, and at last the man sold it
to him, and got many, many thousand dollars for it. When the skipper
had got the mill on his back he did not stay there long, for he was so
afraid that the man would change his mind, and he had no time to ask
how he was to stop it grinding, but got on board his ship as fast as he
could.

When he had gone a little way out to sea he took the mill on deck.
"Grind salt, and grind both quickly and well," said the skipper. So the
mill began to grind salt, till it spouted out like water, and when
the skipper had got the ship filled he wanted to stop the mill, but
whichsoever way he turned it, and how much soever he tried, it went on
grinding, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher, until at last the
ship s