Sabina had never calculated her labours, until Raymond took the trouble to do so; then she learned a fact that astonished her.  He found that it took a hundred and fifty minutes to spin one thousand and fifty yards; and as each spindle spun two and a half miles in ten hours, her daily accomplishment was two hundred and fifty miles of yarn.

“You spin from seventy to eighty thousand miles of single yarn a year,” he told her, and the fact expressed in these terms amazed her and her sister spinners.

Now Nelly Northover praised the performance.

“To think that you slips of girls can do anything so wonderful!” she said.  “We talk of the spinners of Bridport as if they were nobodies; but upon my conscience, Sabina, I never will again.  I’ve always thought I was a pretty busy woman; but I’d drop to the earth I’m sure after an hour of your job, let alone ten hours.”

Sabina laughed.

“It’s use, Mrs. Northover.  Some take to it like a duck to water.  I did for one.  But some never do.  If you come to the Frame frightened, you never make a spinner.  They’re like humans, the Spinning Frames; if they think you’re afraid of them, they’ll always bully you, but if you show them you’re mistress, it’s all right.  They have their moods and whims, just as we have.  They vary, and you never know how the day will go.  Sometimes everything runs smoothly; sometimes nothing does.  Some days you’re as fresh at the end as the beginning; some days you’re dog-tired and worn out after a proper fight.”

“There’s something hungry and cruel and wicked about ’em to my eye,” declared Mrs. Northover.

“We’re oftener in fault than the Frames, however.  Sometimes the spinner’s to blame herself—­she may be out of sorts and heavy-handed and slow on her feet and can’t put up her ends right, or do anything right; and often it’s the fault of the other girls and the ‘rove’ comes to the spinner rough; and often, again, it’s just luck—­good or bad.  If the machine always ran perfect, there’d be nothing to do.  But you’ve got to use your wits from the time it starts to the time it stops.”

“The creature would best me every time,” said the visitor, regarding Sabina’s machine with suspicion and something akin to dislike.

The spinner stopped a fouled spindle and rubbed her hand.

“Sometimes the yarn’s always snarling and your drag weights are always burning off and the stuff is full of kinks and the sliver’s badly pieced up—­that’s the drawing minder’s fault—­and a bad drawing minder means work for me.  Your niece, Sarah, is a very good drawing minder, Mrs. Northover.  Then you’ll get ballooning, when the thread flies round above the flier, and that means too little strain on the jamb and the bobbin has got to be tempered.  And often it’s too hot, or else too cold, for hemp and flax must have their proper temperature.  But to-day my machine is as good and kind as a nice child, that only asks to be fed and won’t quarrel with anybody.”