It 's better
now there. I got stunted then, yoh know. 'N' th' air in th' alleys was
worse, where we slep'. I think mebbe as 't was then I went wrong in my
head. Miss Marg'et!"
Her voice went lower.
"'T isn't easy to think o' th' Master--down _there_, in them cellars.
Things comes right--slow there,--slow."
Her eyes grew stupid, as if looking down into some dreary darkness.
"But the mill?"
The girl roused herself with a sharp sigh.
"In them years I got dazed in my head, I think. 'T was th' air 'n' th'
work. I was weak allus. 'T got so that th' noise o' th' looms went on in
my head night 'n' day,--allus thud, thud. 'N' hot days, when th' hands
was chaffin' 'n' singin', th' black wheels 'n' rollers was alive,
starin' down at me, 'n' th' shadders o' th' looms was like snakes
creepin',--creepin' anear all th' time. They was very good to me, th'
hands was,--very good. Ther' 's lots o' th' Master's people down there,
out o' sight, that's so low they never heard His name: preachers don't
go there. But He'll see to't. He'll not min' their cursin' o' Him,
seein' they don't know His face, 'n' thinkin' He belongs to th' gentry.
I knew it wud come right wi' me, when times was th' most bad. I knew"--
The girl was trembling now with excitement, her hands working together,
her eyes set, all the slow years of ruin that had eaten into her brain
rising before her, all the tainted blood in her veins of centuries of
slavery and heathenism struggling to drag her down.
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