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Updated: May 5, 2025
It now began to rain a little, and Sancho was for going into the fulling mills, but Don Quixote had taken such an abhorrence to them on account of the late joke that he would not enter them on any account; so turning aside to right they came upon another road, different from that which they had taken the night before.
fulling, or felting, which gives woollen goods that substance which distinguishes them. Every hair of wool is saw-edged, and this by beating will mass together. Superfine cloth with a thick solution of soap spread between each layer, and, folded into many piles, is exposed to the long continued action of revolving wooden hammers on wheels, three separate times, for four hours each time.
I say this because, if I mistake not, there comes towards us one who wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino, concerning which I took the oath thou rememberest." "Mind what you say, your worship, and still more what you do," said Sancho, "for I don't want any more fulling mills to finish off fulling and knocking our senses out."
Shortly afterwards Don Quixote perceived a man on horseback who wore on his head something that shone like gold, and the moment he saw him he turned to Sancho and said: "I think, Sancho, there is no proverb that is not true, all being maxims drawn from experience itself, the mother of all the sciences, especially that one that says, 'Where one door shuts, another opens. I say so because if last night fortune shut the door of the adventure we were looking for against us, cheating us with the fulling mills, it now opens wide another one for another better and more certain adventure, and if I do not contrive to enter it, it will be my own fault, and I cannot lay it to my ignorance of fulling mills, or the darkness of the night.
"Look here, my lively gentleman, if these, instead of being fulling hammers, had been some perilous adventure, have I not, think you, shown the courage required for the attempt and achievement?
"I have told thee, brother, on no account to mention those fulling mills to me again," said Don Quixote, "or I vow and I say no more-I'll full the soul out of you." Sancho held his peace in dread lest his master should carry out the vow he had hurled like a bowl at him. The fact of the matter as regards the helmet, steed, and knight that Don Quixote saw, was this.
The last step was a total repeal of all duties. English wools may be divided into long and short staples. The long is used for worsted, which is finished when it leaves the loom; the short for cloth, which is compacted together, increased in bulk and diminished in breadth, by fulling; that is, so beating as to take advantage of the serrated edges of the wool which lead it to felt together.
It used to make me wince as much as it did the sheep to see the crests of those little wrinkles in her skin clipped off. I used to wonder how the sheep knew one another and how the lambs knew their mothers when shorn of their fleeces. But they did. The wool was soon sent to the fulling mill and made into rolls, though I have seen it carded and made into rolls at home by hand.
"I believe it does, sir," said the man. "Is there a fulling mill near?" "No, sir, there was one some time ago, but it is now a sawing mill." Here a woman, coming out, looked at me steadfastly. "Is that gentlewoman your wife?" "She is no gentlewoman, sir, but she is my wife." "Of what religion are you?" "We are Calvinistic-Methodists, sir." "Have you been to chapel?" "We are just returned, sir."
"Good sir," quoth Sancho, "mind what you say, and take heed what you do; for I would willingly keep my carcass and the case of my understanding from being pounded, mashed, and crushed with fulling hammers." "The block-head!" cried Don Quixote; "is there no difference between a helmet and a fulling mill?"
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