"No, that we cannot," said Guido. "Go on, you talk so nice and low. I
feel sleepy and jolly. Talk away, old Wheat."

"Let me see," said the Wheat. "Once on a time while the men were knocking
us out of the ear on a floor with flails, which are sticks with little
hinges--"

"As if I did not know what a flail was!" said Guido. "I hit old John with
the flail, and Ma gave him a shilling not to be cross."

"While they were knocking us with the hard sticks," the Wheat went on,
"we heard them talking about a king who was shot with an arrow like yours
in the forest--it slipped from a tree, and went into him instead of into
the deer. And long before that the men came up the river--the stream in
the ditch there runs into the river--in rowing ships--how you would like
one to play in, Guido! For they were not like the ships now which are
machines, they were rowing ships--men's ships--and came right up into the
land ever so far, all along the river up to the place where the stream in
the ditch runs in; just where your papa took you in the punt, and you got
the waterlilies, the white ones."

"And wetted my sleeve right up my arm--oh, I know! I can row you, old
Wheat; I can row as well as my papa can."

"But since the rowing ships came, the ploughs have turned up this ground
a thousand times," said the Wheat; "and each time the furrows smelt
sweeter, and this year they smelt sweetest of all. The horses have such
glossy coats, and such fine manes, and they are so strong and beautiful.
They drew the ploughs along and made the ground give up its sweetness and
savour, and while they were doing it, the spiders in the copse spun their