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“Thank goodness!” said the Black Rat. “Then they can return to their native ditches.”

“Ditches!” cried the Waters; “Raven’s Gill Brook is no ditch. It is almost navigable, and we come from there away.” They slid over solid and compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.

“Raven’s Gill Brook,” said the Rat. “I never heard of Raven’s Gill.”

“We are the waters of Harpenden Brook–down from under Callton Rise. Phew! how the race stinks compared with the heather country.” Another five foot of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared, gurgled, and was gone.

“Indeed,” said the Grey Cat, “I am sorry to tell you that Raven’s Gill Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to another system entirely.”

“Ah yes,” said the Rat, grinning, “but we forget that, for the young, water always runs uphill.”

“Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!” cried the Waters, descending open- palmed upon the Wheel “There is nothing between here and Raven’s Gill Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of concrete could not remove; and hasn’t removed!”

“And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven’s Gill and runs into Raven’s Gill at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and we come from there!” These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.

“And Batten’s Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through Trott’s Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches’ Spring under Churt Haw, and we–we–we are their combined waters!” Those were the Waters from the upland bogs and moors–a porter-coloured, dusky, and foam- flecked flood.

“It’s all very interesting,” purred the Cat to the sliding waters, “and I have no doubt that Trott’s Woods and Bott’s Woods are tremendously important places; but if you could manage to do your work–whose value I don’t in the least dispute–a little more soberly, I, for one, should be grateful.”

“Book–book–book–book–book–Domesday Book!” The urged Wheel was fairly clattering now: “In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide and a half with eight villeins. There is a church–and a monk…. I remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any quicker than I am doing now … and wood for seven hogs. I must be running twelve to the minute … almost as fast as Steam. Damnable invention, Steam! … Surely it’s time we went to dinner or prayers–or something. Can’t keep up this pressure, day in and day out, and not feel it. I don’t mind for myself, of course. Noblesse oblige, you know. I’m only thinking of the Upper and the Nether Millstones. They came out of the common rock. They can’t be expected to—-“

“Don’t worry on our account, please,” said the Millstones huskily. “So long as you supply the power we’ll supply the weight and the bite.”

“Isn’t it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?” grunted the Wheel. “I seem to remember something about the Mills of God grinding ‘slowly.’ Slowly was the word!”

“But we are not the Mills of God. We’re only the Upper and the Nether Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We are actuated by power transmitted through you.”

“Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the beautiful little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five varieties of rare moss within less than one square yard–and all these delicate jewels of nature are being grievously knocked about by this excessive rush of the water.”

“Umph!” growled the Millstones. “What with your religious scruples and your taste for botany we’d hardly know you for the Wheel that put the carter’s son under last autumn. You never worried about him!”

“He ought to have known better.”

“So ought your jewels of nature. Tell ’em to grow where it’s safe.”

“How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!” said the Cat to the Rat.