'Don't you talk to me about petticoats,' said Zita. 'Petticoats to a woman is what whiskers is to a cat. They have feeling in them. A cat never knocked over nothing with his whiskers, nor does a woman with her skirts if she ain't a weaker fool than a cat.'
Then up the interior of the mill ran Kainie, with wondrous agility, playing in the framework, whilst the huge axletree turned, and the oak fangs threatened to catch or drag her into the machinery.
'Do come down,' said Zita. 'I do not like to see you there.'
But it was in vain that she called; her voice was drowned in the rush of the sails, the grinding of the cogs, and the creak of the wooden building.
Presently Kainie descended, as rapidly as she had run up the ribs of the mill.
'Mother did not let me do it when she was alive,' said the mill girl. 'But I did it all the same. Now, what next? Come and see this.'
She led Zita outside, and took her to the paddle-box, flung open a door in it, and exposed the wheel that was throwing the water from the 'dyke' up an incline into the 'load' at a considerably higher level.
'It licks up the water just like Wolf, only it don't swallow it. There's the difference. And Wolf takes a little, and stops when he's had enough; but this goes on, and its tongue is never dry.'
'Does the mill work night and day?'