'Bessy--we have a Father in Heaven.' 'I know it! I know it,' moaned she, turning her head uneasily
from side to side.
'I'm very wicked. I've spoken very wickedly. Oh! don't be
frightened by me and never come again. I would not harm a hair of
your head. And,' opening her eyes, and looking earnestly at
Margaret, 'I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do o' what's to
come. I read the book o' Revelations until I know it off by
heart, and I never doubt when I'm waking, and in my senses, of
all the glory I'm to come to.' 'Don't let us talk of what fancies come into your head when you
are feverish. I would rather hear something about what you used
to do when you were well.' 'I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been
rightly strong sin' somewhere about that time. I began to work in
a carding-room soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs and
poisoned me.' 'Fluff?' said Margaret, inquiringly.
'Fluff,' repeated Bessy. 'Little bits, as fly off fro' the
cotton, when they're carding it, and fill the air till it looks
all fine white dust. They say it winds round the lungs, and
tightens them up. Anyhow, there's many a one as works in a
carding-room, that falls into a waste, coughing and spitting
blood, because they're just poisoned by the fluff.' 'But can't it be helped?' asked Margaret.
'I dunno. Some folk have a great wheel at one end o' their
carding-rooms to make a draught, and carry off th' dust; but that
wheel costs a deal o' money--five or six hundred pound, maybe,
and brings in no profit; so it's but a few of th' masters as will
put 'em up; and I've heard tell o' men who didn't like working
places where there was a wheel, because they said as how it mad
'em hungry, at after they'd been long used to swallowing fluff,
tone go without it, and that their wage ought to be raised if
they were to work in such places. So between masters and men th'
wheels fall through. I know I wish there'd been a wheel in our
place, though.' 'Did not your father know about it?' asked Margaret.
'Yes! And he were sorry. But our factory were a good one on the
whole; and a steady likely set o' people; and father was afeard
of letting me go to a strange place, for though yo' would na
think it now, many a one then used to call me a gradely lass
enough. And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and soft, and
Mary's schooling were to be kept up, mother said, and father he
were always liking to buy books, and go to lectures o' one kind
or another--all which took money--so I just worked on till I
shall ne'er get the whirr out o' my ears, or the fluff out o' my
throat i' this world. That's all.' 'How old are you?' asked Margaret.