But Lewis was incorrigible. 'Proxime accessit,' he went on, to Rose, 'what crime in your past incarnation is responsible for your being bracketed with me in this?'
'Oh, do listen,' protested George again.
'Listen! Who could help listening to that infernal noise?--I beg your pardon, Miss Tweedie, but it is infernal.'
It was startling, certainly. A shrill moan coming from the racing, rocking, galloping wheel as the worker's body swayed to and fro like a pendulum. It seemed to rouse a vague sense of unrest in the hearers, a dim discomfort like the remembrance of past pain. Then suddenly the story began in a high-pitched persistent voice, round which that racing, galloping rush of the wheel seemed to circle, hurrying it, pushing at it, every now and again sweeping it along recklessly.
'It was a woman seeking something,
Over hill and dale, through night and day, she sought for something.
The wrestlers who own the world wrestled for her,
On the palm of her right hand wrestling for her,
"She is mine, she is mine," said one and the other,
While over hill and dale, through night and day, she sought for something.