"But I know what you mean," she added. "To sit by right at the heart of
things--eh?"
"Yes," said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
thuttered on the grist. "To possess--er--all this environment as an
integral part of one's daily life must insensibly of course ... You see?"
"I feel," said the Grey Cat. "Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with the
spirit of the Mill, who should be?"
"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
forwards: "_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam virgam
et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half a hide
and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin' fellow--friend of mine. He
married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down on the
Normans as upstarts. An' Agemond's dead? So he is. Eh, dearie me! dearie
me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the big frost of Ten
Fifty-Nine.... _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum reddidit_. Book! Book!
Domesday Book!"
"After all," the Grey Cat continued, "atmospere is life. It is the
influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now, outside"--
she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door--"there is an absurd
convention that rats and cats are, I won't go so far as to say natural
enemies, but opposed forces.
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