When he got the door open, he
ran out and set off down the road, with the stream of herrings and broth
at his heels, roaring like a waterfall over the whole farm.
Now, his old dame, who was in the field tossing hay, thought it a long
time to dinner, and at last she said:
"Well! though the master doesn't call us home, we may as well go. Maybe
he finds it hard work to boil the broth, and will be glad of my help."
The men were willing enough, so they sauntered homewards. But just as
they had got a little way up the hill, what should they meet but
herrings and broth, all running and dashing and splashing together in a
stream, and the master himself running before them for his life, and as
he passed them he called out: "Eat, drink! eat, drink! but take care
you're not drowned in the broth."
Away he ran as fast as his legs would carry him to his brother's house,
and begged him in heaven's name to take back the mill, and that at once,
for, said he, "If it grinds only one hour more, the whole parish will be
swallowed up by herrings and broth."
So the poor brother took back the mill, and it wasn't long before it
stopped grinding herrings and broth.
[Illustration: With the herrings and broth at his heels]
And now he set up a farmhouse far finer than the one in which his
brother lived, and with the mill he ground so much gold that he covered
it with plates of gold.
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