“My good friend,” said his neighbours, “you can’t do business in this way.  If a man lives by trade, he must serve his customers.  And a Miller must take in grist when it comes to the mill.”

“Others may if they please,” said the Miller; “but I won’t.  When I make a rule, I stick to it.”

“Take advice, man, or you’ll be ruined,” said his friends.

“I won’t,” said the Miller.

In a few weeks all the country-folk turned their donkeys’ heads towards the windmill on the heath.  It was a little farther to go, but the Windmiller took custom when it came to him, gave honest measure, and added civil words gratis.

The other Miller was ruined.

“All you can do now is to leave the mill while you can pay the rent, and try another trade,” said his friends.

“I won’t,” said the Miller.  “Shall I be turned out of the house where I was born, because the country-folk are fools?”

However, he could not pay the rent, and the landlord found another tenant.

“You must quit,” said he to the Miller.

“That I won’t,” said the Miller, “not for fifty new tenants.”

So the landlord sent for the constables, and he was carried out, which is not a dignified way of changing one’s residence.  But then it is not easy to be obstinate and dignified at the same time.

His wrath against the landlord knew no bounds.

“Was there ever such a brute?” he cried.  “Would any man of spirit hold his home at the whim of a landlord?  I’ll never rent another house as long as I live.”

“But you must live somewhere,” said his friends.

“I won’t,” said the Miller.

He was no longer a young man, and the new tenant pitied him.

“The poor old fellow is out of his senses,” he said.  And he let him sleep in one of his barns.  One of the mill cats found out that there was a new warm bed in this barn, and she came and lived there too, and kept away the mice.

One night, however, Mrs. Pussy disturbed the Miller’s rest.  She was in and out of the window constantly, and meowed horribly into the bargain.

“It seems a man can’t even sleep in peace,” said the Miller.  “If this happens again, you’ll go into the mill-race to sing to the fishes.”

The next night the cat was still on the alert, and the following morning the Miller tied a stone round her neck, and threw her into the water.

“Oh, spare the poor thing, there’s a good soul,” said a bystander.

“I won’t,” said the Miller.  “I told her what would happen.”

When his back was turned, however, the bystander got Pussy out, and took her home with him.

Now the cat was away, the mice could play; and they played hide-and seek over the Miller’s nightcap.

It came to such a pass that there was no rest to be had.

“I won’t go to bed, I declare I won’t,” said the Miller.  So he sat up all night in an arm-chair, and threw everything he could lay his hands on at the corners where he heard the mice scuffling, till the place was topsy-turvy.