Traffics and Discoveries

"Isn't it almost time," she said plaintively, "that the person who is paid to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with that screw-thing on the top of that box-thing."

"They'll be shut off at eight o'clock as usual," said Rat; "then we can go to dinner."

"But we shan't be shut off till ever so late," said the Waters gaily. "We shall keep it up all night."

"The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by its eternal hopefulness," said the Cat. "Our dam is not, I am glad to say, designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time. Reserve is Life."

"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.

"They were such beautiful little plants too," said the Rat tenderly. "Maiden's-tongue and hart's-hair fern trellising all over the wall just as they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the sight of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!"

"Golly!" said the Millstones. "There's nothing like coming to the heart of things for information"; and they returned to the song that all English water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:

There was a jovial miller once
Lived on the River Dee,
And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be.

Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:

I care for nobody – no not I,
And nobody cares for me.

"Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere," said the Grey Cat. "Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of detachment."

"One of your people died from forgetting that, didn't she?" said the Rat.

"One only. The example has sufficed us for generations."

"Ah! but what happened to Don't Care?" the Waters demanded.

"Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of provincialism!" The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. "I am going to sleep. With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but, as our old friend here says, Noblesse oblige… Pity me! Three functions to-night in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!"

"There's no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about two. Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new sacque- dance – best white flour only," said the Black Rat.

"I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of thing, but youth is youth. … By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in the loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it."

"My dear lady," said the Black Rat, bowing, "you grieve me. You hurt me inexpressibly. After all these years, too!"

"A general crush is so mixed – highways and hedges – all that sort of thing – and no one can answer for one's best friends. I never try. So long as mine are amusin' and in full voice, and can hold their own at a tile- party, I'm as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!"

"We aren't mixed. We have mixed. We are one now," said the Waters sulkily.

"Still uttering?" said the Cat. "Never mind, here's the Miller coming to shut you off. Ye-es, I have known —four– or five is it? – and twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza… A little more babble in the dam, a little more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel, and then – "

"They will find that nothing has occurred," said the Black Rat. "The old things persist and survive and are recognised – our old friend here first of all. By the way," he turned toward the Wheel, "I believe we have to congratulate you on your latest honour."

"Profoundly well deserved – even if he had never – as he has – laboured strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind," said the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. "Doubly deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of – er – some people. What form did the honour take?"

"It was," said the Wheel bashfully, "a machine-moulded pinion."

"Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!" the Black Rat sighed. "I never see a bat without wishing for wings."

"Not exactly that sort of pinion," said the Wheel, "but a really ornate circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr. Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally – on my left rim – the side that you can't see from the mill. I hadn't meant to say anything about it – or the new steel straps round my axles – bright red, you know – to be worn on all occasions – but, without false modesty, I assure you that the recognition cheered me not a little."

"How intensely gratifying!" said the Black Rat. "I must really steal an hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left side."

"By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr. Mangles?" the Grey Cat asked. "He seems to be building small houses on the far side of the tail-race. Believe me, I don't ask from any vulgar curiosity."

"It affects our Order," said the Black Rat simply but firmly.

"Thank you," said the Wheel. "Let me see if I can tabulate it properly. Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather. And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for the same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There are there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number fifty-seven. The whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds… I'm sorry I can't make myself clearer, but you can see for yourself."