“It’s a real problem,” Tom acknowledged, and went back to his drawing.
Jack was struck by a thought. “It’s a pity we can’t get oxen to do it.”
The others laughed. Tom said: “You might astryto teach an ox to build churches.”
“Or a mill,” Jack persisted. “There are usually easy ways to do the hardest work.”
“She wants to felt the cloth, not grind it,” Tom said.
Jack was not listening. “We use lifting gear, and winding wheels, to raise stones up to the high scaffolding.”
Aliena said: “Oh, if there was some ingenious mechanism to get this cloth felted, it would be wonderful.”
Jack thought how pleased she would be if he could solve this problem for her. He determined to find a way.
Tom said thoughtfully: “I’ve heard of a water mill being used to work the bellows in a forge—but I’ve never seen it.”
“Really!” Jack said. “That proves it!”
Tom said: “A mill wheel goes round and round, and a grindstone goes round and round, so the one can drive the other; but a fuller’s bat goes up and down. You can’t make a round waterwheel drive an up-and-down bat.”
“But a bellows goes up and down.”
“True, true; but I never saw that forge, I only heard tell of it.”
Jack tried to picture the machinery of a mill. The force of the water drove the mill wheel around. The shaft of the mill wheel was connected to another wheel inside the mill. The inside wheel, which was upright, had teeth that interlocked with the teeth of another wheel which lay flat. The flat wheel turned the millstone. “An upright wheel can drive a flat wheel,” Jack muttered, thinking aloud.
Martha laughed. “Jack, stop! If mills could felt cloth, clever people would have thought of it already.”
Jack ignored her. “The fuller’s bats could be fixed to the shaft of the mill wheel,” he said. “The cloth could be laid flat where the bats fall.”
Tom said: “But the bats would strike once, then get stuck; and the wheel would stop. I told you—wheels go round and round, but bats have to go up and down.”
“There must be a way,” Jack said stubbornly.
“There’s no way,” Tom said decisively, in the tone of voice he used to close a conversational subject.
“I bet there is, though,” Jack muttered rebelliously; and Tom pretended not to hear.
On the following Sunday, Jack disappeared.
He went to church in the morning, and ate his dinner at home, as usual; but he did not appear at suppertime. Aliena, was in her own kitchen, making a thick broth of ham and cabbage with pepper in it, when Ellen came looking for Jack.
“I haven’t seen him since mass,” Aliena said.
“He vanished after dinner,” Ellen said. “I assumed he was with you.”
Aliena felt a little embarrassed that Ellen should have made that assumption so readily. “Are you worried?”
Ellen shrugged. “A mother is always worried.”
“Has he quarreled with Alfred?” Aliena said nervously.
“I asked the same question. Alfred says not.” Ellen sighed. “I don’t suppose he’s come to any harm. He’s done this before and I daresay he’ll do it again. I never taught him to keep regular hours.”
Later in the evening, just before bedtime, Aliena called at Tom’s house to see whether Jack had reappeared. He had not. She went to bed worried. Richard was away in Winchester, so she was alone. She kept thinking Jack might have fallen into the river and drowned, or something. How terrible that would be for Ellen: Jack was her only son. Tears came to Aliena’s eyes when she imagined Ellen’s grief at losing Jack. This is stupid, she thought: I’m crying over someone else’s sorrow about something that hasn’t happened. She pulled herself together and tried to think of another subject. The surplus cloth was her big problem. Normally she could worry about business half the night, but tonight her mind kept returning to Jack. Suppose he had broken his leg, and was lying in the forest, unable to move?
Eventually she drifted into a restless sleep. She woke at first light, still feeling tired. She threw on her heavy cloak over her nightshirt, and pulled on her fur-lined boots, then went outside to look for him.
