William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and
fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for
blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ...
I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady
Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She
rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed
now, but a good pack: one of the best. The Abbot kept 'em in splendid
shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot kept? Book--Book! I shall have to
go right back to Domesday and work up the centuries: _Modo per omnia
reddit burgum tunc--tunc--tunc_! Was it _burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall
remember in a minute. There's no hurry." He paused as he turned over
silvered with showering drops.
"This won't do," said the Waters in the sluice. "Keep moving."
The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped down
to the darkness below.
"Noisier than usual," said the Black Rat. "It must have been raining up
the valley."
"Floods maybe," said the Wheel dreamily. "It isn't the proper season, but
they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big one--when the
Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More than two hundred
years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most unsettling."
"We lifted that wheel off his bearings," cried the Waters. "We said, 'Take
away that bauble!' And in the morning he was five mile down the valley--
hung up in a tree.
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