Chapter 26
“Careful with those crates!” James admonished the workers, as they helped to unload the cart inside the weavers’ shed. Fred oversaw the men carrying the boxes. Ivy, his daughter, tied her long braid up in her kerchief, and helped lever open each of the crates with a flat pry bar.
“Ooh, what are these?” she asked Aaron, then slowed down her words. “What. Are. These?”
“Aqualators,” he said. In Amideutsch, he set out exactly what they did. Margaret and James understood him, but no one else present could, and they did their best to provide a simple explanation. Every face looked blank. Oh, well, then, they would have to wait for the demonstration. Margaret hoped that Aaron was correct in his estimate of two hours to set one up.
“Careful!” he admonished Seth, one of the apprentice weavers, who picked one of the small flat trays from its bed of straw and went to fling it down. “Nicht break!”
“They’re fragile,” Margaret said. “Pray handle them with the greatest care.”
“Sorry, mistress,” Seth said. He put the tray down with exaggerated movements beside the nearest loom.
Aaron and Martin began to empty out cartons marked with a white circle and stacked the trays in groups of eight according to a few pages attached to a small hard board. James assisted them as the weavers watched.
“Ach, nein!”
Aaron looked at the contents of the second-to-last box and turned a stricken face to his father. He held up a pair of gray trays from it. They’d been split into two pieces, probably from the impact of the crate being set down too hard.
“It’s all right, boy,” Martin said, in Amideutsch. “Six will be enough to start. You only have to build one right now, to get things going. We can send for replacements.”
Aaron nodded and set to work.
“What is the purpose of these aqualators?” Master Blackford asked Martin.
Martin launched into a spate of Amideutsch. From the words Margaret knew, the older man was not talking about anything having to do with weaving or calculating. The guild master looked puzzled, and turned to James, who smiled.
“Pray be patient, wait and see, guild master.”
It became evident that the weavers thought that Martin was the chief architect of the mechanism and Aaron was his apprentice. Margaret should have realized that.
Once the pieces were sorted, they moved on to the second group of boxes. These contained thick metal wires bent into weird angles, with cylinders and gears incorporated into their shapes, as well as a quantity of narrow gray metal pipes and what looked like miniature water wheels. They arranged those in sets, too. Margaret noticed that there were six intact groups in all.
“Wo ist der wasser?” Aaron asked.
“Water,” Margaret translated.
Fred pointed a thick finger toward the rear wall of the shed. “River’s by there,” he said. “Behind yon wall.”
Martin took careful measurements along the wall, using a cloth tape. Then he hefted a red enameled box and an armload of pipe and trudged out of the door. A few minutes later, they heard a grinding noise.
“Me wall!” Fred exclaimed, horrified. As quickly as he was able, he hobbled outside. Everyone else followed him to see what was going on.
They found Martin with a hand drill creating a hole in the wall of the building a couple of feet above the ground. The whitewash coating the wattle and daub structure had had circles the size of Margaret’s palm drawn on it at intervals that approximated the location of each of the first six looms in the lofty chamber, both at waist height and within a few inches of the ground. Plaster dust and wool strands drifted around his feet.
“Good limestone here,” Martin said, in Amideutsch. “The water is pure.”
Martin completed the hole, and passed a length of narrow pipe through it to Aaron. He brought the other end down to the river. Margaret watched him assemble what looked like a miniature water wheel and attached it to that end. The current picked up the tiny cups and began to spin them around. That part of the mechanism must have been concealed behind the wall of the Treasury. Herr Craig, for so she must refer to him in front of their weavers, shouted through the hole in the wall, and Aaron called back to him. Margaret heard a grinding noise, as if something was being slid over the floorboards.
The others rushed back inside. Aaron had moved the big loom closer to the wall and was fitting some strange pieces made of stiff wire to it. The dozen or so aqualators piled by it had been stacked into two boxes with pipes sticking out top and bottom.
“Can someone get this loom set up to go?” Aaron asked Margaret when she reappeared. “I’ll be done attaching the mechanism to it, then we can run a demo.” The first part of his query was in Amideutsch, but the last three words were in English. All of it was still incomprehensible to the others.
“Ja, I mean, yes,” Margaret said. “If you please, will one of you wind the threads on the warp beam? And wind two bobbins for the weft shuttles?”
“Two?” Fred asked, narrowing his eyes. “What witchcraft are ye tryin’ on me looms?”
“Fred, if you please,” Sir Timothy said, much less patiently than his daughter. “Three yards should be enough for now.”
Muttering about waste, the elder weaver picked up a huge spool, and threaded the wool in and out of the healds in between the teeth of the reed. Fred was arguably the fastest on the manor, and preparing for such a short run of cloth was easy for him. Within a brief time, the loom was ready. As soon as Fred set down the shuttles, Aaron picked them up and attached long wires to each side, then tied into a separate block of aqualators that drove their own small wheels.
“What are ye doin’, then?” Fred demanded.
“Wait and see,” Master Blackford said.
“The beater will have to be run by hand,” Aaron said. “I couldn’t get it to work without blocking total access to the loom.”
Margaret translated his words to the others. “Who would like to try it?”
Most of the weavers were reluctant to touch the loom with its bizarre attachments.
“Not I,” Fred said. “I don’t want to get tangled up in all them wires.”
“I’ll do it,” Ivy said, with a smile for Aaron. “What do you need me to do?”
“Pull it just like you would if you were throwing the shuttles yourself,” he replied, in Amideutsch. James translated it for him.
“Does he understand me, then?” Ivy asked Margaret, her eyes wide.
“Hamburg has many people who speak English,” Margaret said. “He, er, understands more than he can say.”
“Oh!” Ivy shot a shy gaze at Aaron. “If I may, shall I teach him our language, then?”
Aaron looked as if nothing would please him more, but Martin clicked his tongue at him. The youth hastily turned to his job. He signed to Ivy to sit down on the stool before the loom and indicated that she should take hold of the beater. Then, he turned the stopcock on the thin pipe that led into the aqualator.
Everyone held their breath as the shallow trays filled up, then the loom started to move by itself.
“Witchcraft!” Fred growled, but Ivy followed the raising and lowering heddles with her eyes. Then, as the shuttles shot across the shed, she pulled the beater to her. The shuttles moved back across the warp, and she repeated the action.
Margaret watched with delight as the heddles rose and fell in line with the diagram she had created. She’d daydreamed about seeing the pattern come to life, and here it was happening in front of her!
“What’s it making?” Cedric Hollings asked, watching the dance of the wires as they lifted different threads in turn.
“Brocade,” Margaret said, feeling triumph well up in her heart.
Cedric sputtered. “Who ever heard of wool brocade?”
“No one.” She turned to face the other weavers. “Not until now. We’re making it. Right here.”
Sir Timothy looked absolutely delighted as the pattern began to emerge on the loom. “Come and look at it, my friends! Bless my soul, roses! Isn’t that it, Margery?”
Margaret’s heart filled with excitement. “Yes, Father. Roses it is.”
The top of the blossom and leaf pattern that Margaret had devised so many weeks ago was finally coming into shape on an actual loom, not just in her imagination. As the two shuttles danced across the shed, the details emerged. It looked even finer than Margaret dared to hope. Aaron had been a truly good student of Herr Oberdorn. Instead of ten or more blossoms on the breadth of the fabric as it was in the silk, the thicker thread meant that only five blossoms set in a wreath of leaves could find room on the smooth, plain background, but it was still unique and unprecedented. The weavers gathered close to watch, murmuring to one another. Some looked skeptical, some worried, and some as delighted as Margaret herself. Every tiny detail excited.
“Aagh! No!”
Unfortunately, Ivy also became interested in what she was helping to produce, and lost her rhythm. She didn’t pull the beater in time, and the two shuttles crashed into it and flipped off the loom. One hung from the wires on the side, but the second shot off across the floor and disappeared underneath one of the other looms. Its bobbin fell to the floor, unwinding what was left of its thread in a tangled mess.
“I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” she wailed, scrabbling to retrieve the parts.
“It’s all right,” Aaron said. “Honestly, it’s all right.” He ran to turn off the stopcock, then retrieved the missing shuttle and started to put the bobbin back into it. Fred gave him a fierce look and snatched the two pieces out of his hands. Margaret held her breath, hoping no one had noticed the slip of the tongue when Aaron spoke in English. Fortunately, no one seemed to have made any note of it. The American’s native accent sounded strange enough to the British ear. Aaron gave her an apologetic glance. She nodded. He would be more careful.
Fred rewound the thread and clapped it into place. “There ye go, lass. If this foreigner can make it run again, keep your mind on the task.”
“Yes, Pa,” Ivy said, chastened.
Aaron reattached the pieces of the shuttles to the wires and checked the parts of the loom to make sure that the warp tension hadn’t been upset. He compared what had already been woven to the papers on his board and set the shuttles in place. He gave Ivy a nod and moved to turn the water on again. The loom started moving, and Ivy bent to her task, her face set in concentration.
Line by line, inch by inch, the pattern grew. No one else in the room moved at all, so fascinated as they were by the miracle that was happening before their eyes. Ivy fell right back into the rhythm, even humming to herself as she worked. In a short time, the first row of roses was complete, and the men clustered around and murmured their approval.
“Are they using suchlike in Germany right now?” Master Blackford asked.
“It is not yet widely used,” Margaret said, mentally crossing her fingers against the lie. According to her conversations with Aaron, the aqualators were just taking hold in the USE for calculation and industry, but no one but she had thought to combine them with weaving equipment. She thought for a moment that in exchange for his help, Aaron would have extended the technique to the Oberdorns, then dismissed it at the thought of overwhelming that pristine workroom with gears and water. She would have to ask Aaron later. “We will be the first in Britain to produce such.”
“If I permit it,” Master Blackford said, in an austere tone. “I will have to consult with the guild council.”
“Your pardon, guild master,” Sir Timothy said, not at all apologetically. “These folk are in my employ, and they will obey my commands.”
“But they still cleave to the guild! They are subject to its rules!”
“Master Blackford,” Sir Timothy said. “What you have seen here will benefit all weavers in time. I don’t believe that we should go backward. New inventions come along every day. Leonardo da Vinci’s science a hundred years ago proved that we have not yet explored all of the potential that God has put before us, and we have advanced since then.”
“Do you dare speak of the divine with these instruments of Satan?”
“Now, now, my friend,” Sir Timothy said, pursing his lips. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You saw the pieces go together yourself. None of it was made of anything unnatural, only metal, clay, and water, like a small water wheel, but one that drives a loom instead of a mill. How marvelous that our German friends had the ingenuity to combine them in a way that advances our craft!”
Margaret hung close behind Ivy’s shoulder, watching the aqualators work. Her dream had come true. An inch at a time, she saw the means of rebuilding the family’s fortune. She glanced at the men and women clustered by her. They were half-listening to the argument going on behind them, but their eyes were fixed on the rise and fall of the heddles, and the swish-swish of the twin shuttles passing over the warp. A narrow band of plain fabric bounded the first set of roses. Now a second set of leaves was beginning to take shape. Ivy ratcheted the cloth beam toward her, and the pattern was clear as it rolled up onto it. Margaret let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Then, the second part of the pattern began to take shape. These rose clusters were offset from the first row, forming four instead of five. It looked really neat. Up until the moment he saw it happen, the wool brocade had been mostly theoretical. As soon as the blossoms began to form, Aaron clenched his fist in victory.
“Yes!” he hissed. The others cheered and came to slap him on the back.
“Well done, my friend,” Margaret congratulated Aaron in English. “It’s everything I could have prayed for.”
He smiled at her. “Thank you, Fräulein Margaret. I’m glad to do it. It was fun!”
“Why congratulate this boy?” Master Blackford asked, looking from one to the other. “Surely he’s the apprentice, and his father is the master.”
“Nein,” Martin replied. “Mein boy ist der Meister Computerhersteller.”
“What, then? Now the whole world is going mad!” the guild master declared. “Where children are the masters and fathers are the apprentices!” The other senior weavers added their sour agreement. But Martin favored them with a contented smile.
“I am proud of my boy,” Margaret translated for him.
Journeyman Daniel Taylor cleared his throat.
“Is it all right to try it?” he asked. “The akalabors?”
Ivy looked up at Aaron, who nodded. He moved to turn off the stopcock, and the shuttles slowly came to a halt.
“Everyone should get a chance,” he said in Amideutsch. No one needed a translation for that. They were eager to try.
One by one, the weavers sat down at the loom. With Aaron’s gestures, they began to follow the rhythm of the loom, and the design on the cloth grew. He stopped the flow of water in between, letting each have their turn. Even when the water was turned on, he kept the trickle slow so the crafters could learn the pace of the twin shuttles.
The master weavers were skeptical, hanging back while the apprentices and journeymen took turns. It looked as though all of the senior craftsmen but Fred were against it.
“It will take all the skill from our hands and put it into this…machine,” John Mayhew grumbled, lowering his eyebrows all the way to the bridge of his nose. “We’ll be reduced to beating the cloth against the warp end and nothing else! All the work we put in to master our craft, and for this?”
“Nay! It’s a good thing.”
“Why not accept the gift?”
“What’s the harm?”
On the other hand, the majority of the apprentices and journeymen liked the aqualators, because it was less work than throwing the shuttle and dancing on the pedals themselves. The experiment wasn’t an unqualified success, as the most junior of the apprentices, Diccon Linden, a small and skinny eleven-year-old, couldn’t keep time, and lost control of the beater. His face went scarlet as Aaron and Ivy had to stop the contraption and set it to rights all over again. The others laughed at him. The boy broke away from the stool and hid behind the farthest loom, picking up shreds of fleece into a basket.
“Come, come,” Fred said, with exaggerated impatience. “Not everyone will need to work these. We’ve got regular looms still, don’t we, squire?”
“That is true, my friend,” Sir Timothy said, nodding.
“But can’t we attach these akalabors to the other looms to make ordinary cloth?” Lily Dale asked. Like Ivy, she wasn’t an official member of the guild, but had worked alongside her father and her brothers since she was small. “Look what the loom could do for us! You don’t lift the threads with your hands. You’re already using the foot pedals to lift the heddles now. Think how fast we can go!”
“Aye,” Daniel added. He eyed the loom with one eye slitted in speculation. “I’d bet that we can get a bolt done in a day instead of a week.”
The masters scoffed. “Fifteen yards in a day? That’s a daydream!”
“Would you care to put money on it, eh?” Daniel asked. He scanned the group. “No one? I’ll gladly learn the tricks of the water way, and the fine cloth that we’ll be getting out of it. The results should be obvious to all of yer. This fabric is amazing, and the customers won’t be able to pass it without buying.” He patted Aaron on the shoulder. “It’s good! I like it!”
“Sehr gut,” Aaron agreed. He grinned at Margaret.
“Such a thing should be brought under the aegis of the guild,” Master Blackford said, thoughtfully stroking his beard. “This machine is part of the loom, so it falls to us to dictate its uses.”
“No!” Aaron protested. “It does many more things. It does not belong just to the weavers.”
Margaret translated his words to the guild master. Blackford frowned.
“But what else can it do?”
“Calculating, directing other machinery, creating designs, running games…” Aaron reeled off. Margaret and James did their best to render the terms into English. The weavers looked even more puzzled.
Fred threw up his hands. “I do not see how this run of pipes and wires makes any of that come to life.”
“That’s of no importance, because it does one thing that we can see,” Sir Timothy said, trying to pull the conversation back to the matter at hand. He patted the raised flowers on the loom. He could not seem to stop touching it. “Look at it! Look at the fabric. We can make our fortune by bringing this beautiful textile to market. It could make our fortunes! What do you say, my friends?”
“Well, one pattern doesn’t make a new market,” Cedric put in, his mouth twisted as if he was biting something sour.
“We can make different patterns later on,” Margaret said. She turned to Aaron. “Can’t we?”
“Ja,” he said. “I can change the gates to match other designs in new aqualators. I’ll show you how to read them and change them out when you want. You’ll have to learn basic programming, but that should be easy.” Margaret explained his words to the others.
“Amazing,” Fred said, shaking his head. He was absolutely converted.
“Then we shall proceed,” Sir Timothy said. He put out his hand to Master Blackford. “Are we agreed, sir?”
Master Blackford did not reach out to him. Instead, he fixed the squire with a gimlet eye.
“You do understand, sir, that the guild has not received a rise in pay for three years, now? And with this new cloth in the offing, it will bring in superior revenue to the standard weaves that we have been producing all these years.”
“Aye,” Daniel said, with a raised eyebrow. “We have to learn this new machinery. Especially since it’s not guild machinery, but some foreign stuff brought in to change good English labors.”
Margaret stared at the men in horror. This was an obstacle that she had not foreseen, even with all the other troubles over which she had fretted.
Sir Timothy, too, was taken aback. “Gentlemen, I am at a loss to understand you! We have not made a penny on this yet. Let us see what the market will provide.”
“Nay, I cannot agree,” Master Blackford said. “These akalabors…”
“Aqualators,” Margaret said faintly, not recognizing her own voice.
“…Aqualators must fall under the auspice of the guild, and any profit to be made therefrom needs to be controlled by the council before any of this cloth is woven, let alone sent to market! Squire, I appeal to you in your role as Magistrate to hear my case, or must I bring it to the king’s court?”
That was it, Margaret realized. He was going to make her father both judge and defendant in a case. The other weavers were paying close attention. Not that they cared who controlled the new mechanisms. They had heard the word “pay,” and that was where their interests lay.
“My friend, there is no need to litigate this matter,” Sir Timothy said. “This mechanism will benefit us all. It works so swiftly, as you have seen, and we will be able to bring the goods to market soon.”
“But we’ll be paid the same,” Daniel insisted. “And you’ll earn so much more than that!”
“But you won’t,” Margaret said, and bit her tongue when all the men turned to look at her. “You’ll earn more, too.” She shot a look of apology to her father. She had put off discussing Mike Stearns’ philosophy with him, as she hoped that it wouldn’t become an issue so soon. It looked as though there might be a work stoppage if she didn’t prevent it, just as they were about to weave their way out of disaster.
“So, you’re offering a rise in pay, then?”
“Margery!” Sir Timothy bellowed.
“Better,” Margaret said, mustering all the confidence she could display. She hoped that she would be able to explain it adequately. “You are right that you should benefit from the new style of cloth that we will be making here. Can you imagine how people will respond to seeing it?”
“They’ll scoop it up,” Fred said, grinning wide enough to show the missing molar on the left side of his jaw. “It should fetch top price. Double or more than, if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Yes! And the better it does, the better for all of us. Father, gentlemen, we are using the same thread, only formed into a new and more attractive configuration. So, wouldn’t it be fair to say that the difference between the higher price and the base price is a bonus that should benefit all? What if…” and here she swallowed, regretting the bewilderment on her father’s face, “what if ten percent of that difference should be divided among all of you as a reward for learning the new skill and bringing our new brocade to market?”
“Ten? Should be twenty,” Cedric said with a snort.
“But we are not asking you to absorb the extra expenses, Master Cedric,” Margaret pointed out. “If you are willing to pay out of your share toward having Herr Craig design and build the aqualators, and travel all the way here from Hamburg, to set up these mechanisms and teach you all how to run them, then I believe you will end up with far less.”
The weavers pulled away from her and went to talk in a corner, Master Blackford in their midst. Their voices started as a murmur but quickly rose to shouting. The women and apprentices hung around the perimeter of the inner circle.
“Margery, what in the name of thunder are you on about?” Sir Timothy demanded, pulling her aside. James and the Americans joined them on the other side of the altered loom.
She lowered her eyes. “I am so very sorry, Father. Prime Minister Stearns talked to me about this notion when I spoke to him. He said it would work as a tool to encourage laborers to put more of their effort into a concern if they shared in the benefits it produced.”
“Such a thing is unheard of!”
“Profit sharing is pretty common in the USE,” Martin told him. “It helps motivate workers to do their best. I don’t think you’ll miss a small amount like that.”
“They won’t accept such a strange notion!” her father protested. “They’ll want a rise in pay! That’s a certainty, not this bizarre notion.” He made a spinning gesture in the air. “I know we have fallen behind over the years. Master Blackford is correct that their forbearance ought to be rewarded. But ten percent of the profits…Margery, this will thrust us into bankruptcy faster than going on as we have.”
“No, sir, it won’t,” Aaron said. He flipped the top paper on his clipboard over and pulled a pencil out of his pocket. “Look, sir, let’s pretend the gross profit is a thousand pounds. If you calculate expenditures, including wages, cost of raw materials, machinery, and taxes and subtract them, say three hundred pounds, you’ll come out with the net profit. Say you make fifteen hundred pounds from the new fabric. They don’t get ten percent of that, they get a percentage of the difference between that and what you would have made anyway. So, it’s really a small deduction.” The pencil flew down the page. Sir Timothy, from whom Margaret had inherited her facility with numbers, followed him quite well. Margaret saw him nodding as each figure appeared. “And if you want, you can expand it to ten percent of full net. I’d wait until the brocade was for sale, if it was me.”
“By heaven’s light, you may be on to something.” Sir Timothy eyed the other conversation going on. “But, Margery, you should have discussed this with me before. It is wrong for me to hear you make promises in my name without my having even the slightest notion of what I was promising.”
“I know, Father, I am sorry. I was being forward. Pray forgive me. It just slipped out when it seemed as if they would not agree.”
Sir Timothy grimaced. “They may still not agree. I don’t see this ending soon. James, run up to the house and have Mrs. Ball arrange to have a keg of beer and mugs for us. I’m dry as a desert.” Margaret’s brother headed off at a run.
The weavers continued with their argument. Occasionally, someone would send an angry look over their shoulder toward either the Americans or the aqualatored loom. The four masters were definitely in disagreement with one another. Master Blackford held himself aloof, not seeming to agree with one side or the other. Again and again, he called for a vote. First, one hand went up. In the second casting, another joined it. In the third, yet one more, Master Walter Twelvetrees, but in the fourth vote, his hand went down again. More discussion followed, growing ever more heated. The Guild Master beckoned to the younger members of the guild and asked for their opinion in a calm, measured voice. The masters weren’t pleased with that, and the argument rose to shouts again.
Margaret was beside herself with frustration. Didn’t these men understand that they stood on the threshold of greatness? Half an ell of cloth that represented the future lay on the loom between them.
Before she could step into the midst of the fray, she felt a hand come down on her shoulder, both gentle and firm.
“No, Margery,” Sir Timothy said. “You’ve wound up this clock. Now we must see if it chimes the hour on its own.”
After several more minutes of discussion, during which the servants of the house arrived with beer and lanterns, as the sun had nearly set, Master Blackford held up his hands. The weavers ceased talking as though someone had turned off the stopcock. He led the procession back toward the de Beauchamps.
“Well, then, Sir Timothy,” he said. “Your daughter certainly has some strange ideas that she has brought back from…Germany. In my long life I’ve never heard of such a thing. We of the Weavers and Fullers Guild are accustomed to receiving a fair wage, not engaging in speculation as to whether we will get paid or not.” He gestured to the crowd. “We have reached an agreement…”
“A tentative agreement,” Cedric said, frowning. He had been the last dissenter, and had not changed his mind throughout the discussion.
“Enough, sirrah! Your point has been noted. Sir Timothy, we will accede to the terms you stated, to run the looms for this new fabric. But we want ten percent of all additional proceeds as well as fair wages.”
“My dear sir! I can’t see my way to agreeing until we have product to sell!”
“Isn’t that just what your girl just offered us?” Blackford gestured to Margaret, who felt her cheeks burn.
“Guild master, we are starting from a negative position,” Sir Timothy said. “I’d be turning over an empty sack.”
Master Blackford nodded. “Then, five percent of net until the real profits start to come in. All moneys will be accounted for through the guild. The council will take half a percent until then—ah, ah!” He held up a hand to still protests from his membership. They saw part of the profit sharing being taken away from them before they even had it in their hands. “And one percent thereafter. For working expenses and adding the skills to the roster of mastery.”
Sir Timothy had a counter of his own. “Only for the weavers who are actually working on the brocade. The others add no especial value to the common fabric. They will be paid their fair wages.”
Master Blackford wasn’t having it. “No, all of them! They will all be trained, and can step in to run any loom on the estate and in the cottages in the rest of the manor. And beyond it, as more akalabors—aqualators—are added. If the mechanical shuttles can go on any loom, we can make ordinary fabric much more quickly. That is value, indeed.”
Sir Timothy looked crestfallen. “But no one will speak of it or bring any of the mechanisms out of here until we give permission. All will keep the secrets revealed here today, under pain of dismissal from the manor.”
“And from the guild,” Master Blackford said, looking sternly at the assembled workers. “This benefits us all. Secrecy, until we two say otherwise.”
“Agreed,” said the squire.
“Agreed,” said the guild master. At last, they shook hands. The rest of the weavers, save for Cedric and his hangers-on, nodded. Margaret felt like dancing, but held back from making a spectacle of herself.
“Well, well, then have a drink on me, my friends!” Sir Timothy offered, gesturing to the keg of beer, now tapped and waiting.
Master Blackford smiled. “Always the host of the moment, Squire. Here’s to profit!”
Everyone hoisted a glass. Aaron gave Margaret a conspiratorial grin.
* * *
“Well, this has reached long into the evening, Sir Timothy,” Master Blackford said at last. He shook hands with the baronet again. “I appreciate the hospitality. And this glimpse into a new textile that I agree will set tongues a-wagging.”
Sir Timothy clapped his hands on his belly. “By heaven, I hope so! We want word to spread so that every scrap sells.”
“How soon can your Germans set up the other looms?”
They turned to Aaron.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“As Heaven wills it,” Master Blackford said. “Then, I wish you a very good night, sir, Mistress Margaret.”
“Guild master,” Margaret said, her heart filled with gratitude. If he had not agreed, their plans might have foundered at the outset.
The weavers departed, all talking among themselves. Cedric and the other dissenters murmured darkly to one another. They still weren’t happy, but since the guild master had spoken for them, they had to adhere to the agreement. Margaret knew her father would have to use his much-vaunted skills at diplomacy to smooth ruffled feathers until they saw the benefits of working with the new mechanisms.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel as if I have run all the way to Scotland and returned again,” Sir Timothy said, with a hearty sigh. “Pray allow me to escort you all back to the house. I need a good night’s rest. And thank you, Master Aaron and Master Martin. You are about to make our fortune for us.”
“We hope so,” Aaron said.
“Come on, son,” Martin said, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “You have to do your homework before you go to bed.”
“Dad!”