"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.
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