“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.