The mill brook was running dry!
Already there was scarce water enough to stir the heavy wheel. Another week without rain, and the bed of the brook would be naught but a length of puddles and pools. And the fine golden grain he had purchased was being threshed and winnowed, and would soon be arriving at the mill!
In and out of the door of the mill, a hundred times a day went the water-miller, now to stare at the vanishing brook, now to sweep the sky in hope of rain. But the dry leaves only rustled more dryly, and the sun was bright.
Worse yet, the Princess Celestia’s wedding day was fast approaching, and the Queen would soon be calling for her flour. And sure enough, the Queen’s herald presently rode again through the land, summoning all good millers to bring of their new flour to the palace before sundown on the seventh day.
The following week was indeed an anxious one for the miller by the brook. Alas for his fortunes—not a single drop of rain fell either in the meadows or the hills, and the brook ran dry. You might as well have tried to turn the wheel with a pitcher of water as to turn it with the trickle which remained.
On the night of the sixth day, the water-miller, humbled in heart, rode over to the windmill to make his peace and ask a boon. He would ask the wind-miller to grind the wonderful golden grain, and offer him half of the grain as a reward.
Now the wind-miller had not forgotten the water-miller’s trickery; so he received his old crony with anything but a friendly air.
“Grind grain for you, sir?” said the wind-miller, standing with arms akimbo and feet apart, “yes, sir; but only on one condition, sir, and that is, sir, that you let me choose my half of the grain, sir.
“And hearken, sir, one thing more, sir. You must bring the grain to the windmill this very night, sir.”
Now it came to pass that, as the water-miller, hanging his head, went out into the night, Cecily saw him, and ran to ask him for news of Valentine. But the water-miller was himself troubled because of the absence of his son, and could give no new tidings to the maid.