Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 60 - The Burial Ceremony

After breakfast, the pioneers led the way while I stood and walked behind them as Heather was clutching the sides of my arm as she too was shedding her tears. I had dried mine off earlier as we walked across the bridge, as it makes creaking noises under the weight of the procession. I raised my chin, try not to look too forlorn and walked with the masses.

The children were at the courtyard as Jack was telling them some stories to keep them preoccupied. He also told them what they need to do afterwards, to collect crushed rocks, hay or dried grass and cool ash from the fireplace and oven to mix sparingly for the process of the clay bricks.

He then encouraged, "If you do well today, grandchildren... Grandpapa would give you sweet. There are this round sugary sweet things that you pop in your mouth as you slowly suck on it and it will disappear like magic...! Do you want them or not?" The replies he got from the children were ecstatic and this would take the children's mind off for the time being.

He suddenly remembered a sack of spoils that were mentioned by Eagle as it was placed obscurely last night behind the blacksmith shop which Jack had totally forgotten about it. The chain of events, unfortunately, made him unaware. However, today won't be a good idea to take a look at what was inside the sack though.

After the children had calmed down, he led the children to pick the materials and got them to make mud pies once more. The batch of 12 sets of 16 bricks was cool to touch and was not that really to handle so he slowly brought 2 pieces at a time and set it in a circular shape around the firing area.

He slowly made a space of a finger's breadth between each clay bricks and he slowly stacked the first level, then followed by the second and subsequently completed all the 192 bricks, all stacked on top of one another like the exterior of a fort's tower. This is to allow the draft to be s.u.c.k.e.d through the gaps and heat to rise from the opening at the top.

"Hmm, I need Ben to construct the children at least 6 hand wagons for these little hands to transport the clay bricks, as well as turning these into some toys to keep their minds off the unprecedented event and also to keep them entertained. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," he thought to himself.

Jack decided to get on with the project himself to construct a simple sleigh instead of one with wheels would be much feasible. At least it could be used on both flat and snowy grounds. It also would be a good floating device for the kids to scramble on top and play with it.

At least when the children were watching intently at his handicraft, they would be oblivious on what's happening on the other side of the riverbank.

=*=

"We are gathered here today to wish our final farewell to baby Chadwell that had left us all behind to be in a much better place under God's watchful eyes."

"May she be a guardian angel to watch over the young and innocent ones ln the near future."

"Blessed her soul and be at rest peacefully." I took a handful of earth and slowly poured over the woven mat that almost everyone thought was an actual corpse of an infant.

Ben, Frank and I had earlier placed the woven mat with a sack that was shaped like a baby into the ground and the other men helped to boost us up onto the higher ground. Although only the pioneers and the engineers somehow knew about it, that scenario was almost too realistic.

I cried my eyes out, the pioneers too and then the same goes to the rest of the citizens. After everyone had poured some earth into the ground, it was the men, the close buddies of Chadwell, the miners, who were the ones that inhume the land and made a small mound. A stone was placed as a tomb to mark the unnamed grave.

Everyone started to move off led by the pioneers and engineers to the windmill. The atmosphere was still sombre and I have to pick up the situation as it is not so conducive for the rest of the day or week. "Pick yourself up. No matter if one's time has stopped, the rest has to go on living. There's work to be done. Engineers proceed."

The door of the windmill's entrance was as large as a barn house and it was opened to accommodate the view of the interior and the fundamentals of a mill. Sparrow was standing on the upper level and was holding a piece of block and a long reed stalk. In a loud voice, it boomed across the mill and reached to the end of the last person in the crowd.

"The front rows please sit down until I saw stop. Then when I say resume, the next following row will be down on one knee and the rest behind would remain standing." unknown to all, this was somewhat like an army formation to assume during positioning of archers, of course, except for the ones in the front sitting cross-legged.

After he was satisfied after giving the stop and resume commands, everyone had finally gotten a clear view of the whole interior of the mill. He then explained about the general operation and a block of wood to be wedged to stop the windmill from operating itself and lastly the millstones and the chute.

Everyone nodded in apprehension and Sparrow explains this is a two-man operation and stared clearly the responsibility of the ones in the upper and lower deck of the mill.

"Next is the dry run, can someone please pick up the winnowing tray to receive the wheat first underneath that chute." He then released the choke (woodblock) and the whole axles, gears and millstone started to turn. It was almost silent, smooth, well-oiled clockwork operations and he hollered, here comes the wheat as he cups a handful and poured on the millstones.

Due to gravity and the gyrating motion of the top millstone, the wheat all flowed into the small hole and the millstones started to grind that wheat still in their hulls. Someone caught the end process if the milling as fine flour mixed with crushed hulls flowed down the chute.

Sparrow then slowed down the millstones by applying a hand brake mechanism made of a concave wood to add friction to the gears and when it finally stopped, he inserted the choke.

A young engineer passed the tray to everyone and Jennings started to winnow the contents and the crushed hulls dropped to the floor while the plain, fine flour was all left inside the tray.

"There is a technique of winnowing so it would be best to practise first. This implies to those who would be assigned on the lower deck." she handed the tray back to the young engineer, after which she scooped the crushed hulls and said to everyone, "These crushed hulls is food to pigs and horses."

"Separate the hills and deliver to me and I will bake bread for the horses plus some other ingredients. As for the pigs, it could be cooked with other non-edible meats and bones, skin et cetera to make a kind of thick gruel and once it is cooled, it could be used to feed them."

"Alright, we will proceed with the rest using the grains. There is still flour inside with crushed hulls so when we inserted these grains, whatever contents left inside would be pushed along with it. Here it comes, tray please."

The choke was removed and the millstones moved once more. "First batch...!" and Sparrow took a handful of grains and let it on top and let gravity worked its way. True enough, when the white grains were dropped on top, the remaining of the crushed hulls exited from the chute until it became clear, white flour.

"The following batches...!" as Sparrow scooped handfuls one by one into the top of the mill until he completed the process. The young engineer at the bottom deftly picked a sack and places it underneath the chute as everyone can see fine white flour being deposit like fine snow into the sack.

It took merely 10 to 12 breathes to finish the whole sack of 5 pounders. Of course, it would be a good idea to jump dump the whole sack in as the top millstone was of concave design and could hold a 5 pounder easily.

Jennings helped to winnow the tray and left no crushed hulls inside as she poured the contents into the sack. At the end of the process, there was about a pound of crushed wheat hulls on the ground.

"To avoid double work, simply place a tarp to gather the hulls instead of sweeping them and storing into a sack thereafter. This would prevent gravel from being baked along with the flour and so on. You would like those crunchy bits that are hard to swallow, am I right to say that?" after Jennings had mentioned it, Sparrow directed everyone on to the next stage.

"Alright gather outside everyone, someone would be directing the lessons and meanings of the positioning of the blades. So the citizens all moved out and stood before the that was anchored with 2 pieces of wood shaped like an" X" while Sparrow remained on the upper deck of the mill.

Eagle was the one who showed the meaning of the blades positioning and whenever he shouted "LOCK", Sparrow inserted the block between the gears to stop the gears from operating. "GO" instead or "RELEASE" was used because the command was short and sharp.

There were 4 positions and each one was listed out carefully as his strong voice resonated across everyone's ears. The citizens nodded their heads in apprehension as it was basic to learn.

"Right now the blade should be leaning toward the right-hand side of the tower which denotes a passing of a beloved person. LOCK" and the windmill blade is immobilised from inside since the usage of the cross beams might be detrimental to the almost fragile-looking blades.

"Now let us move to go over to the flags. This is the colours of GraceHaven and it was properly coordinated with the visions of the future for this village as its founding members. I do not need to narrate further in the meaning of the colours, but if any of you wished to know why these colours are important, I will narrate them later."

Eagle explained about the flag where when fluttered during peacetime, the red always faces on top and the white half pointed below. "In case we are at war or under siege, the flag would be hung upside down with the white facing on the top and the red facing down."

"This is just a sample banner that I took from our Young Sir here. I believed a yellow two-headed winged eagle would be in the centre of this black portion. When the flag is hung during troubled times, everyone can see that the eagle would be upside down in addition to a square black flag and a circle black flag. This signifies that it is a distress sign and denotes assistance required."

Eagle presented a square flag and a round flag with the top and bottom part supported with stalks of reed to make it upright. He then clipped the two flags together with pegs fashioned from reeds that clipped the stalk reeds perfectly with the rope as the other end of the clip had a piece of reed stalk that acts as a clamp.

"Young Master, that's a clip that would be used to clamp the hunting bows together for 2 days and left to dry naturally." Gwen nudged me as I nodded in apprehension on knowing how a flimsy material could appear straight as if it was fluttering naturally in the air. So these clips would be used as a clamp to hold the hunting to properly set the hunting bows in place.

So there was a question and answer as Sparrow assisted to unclip the black flags and turn the flag right side up. After the series of question and answers that relayed between the citizens and Eagle, Sparrow commanded, "ALL RISE." before he hoisted the flag up to the top of the pole.