Dina, who had come to ask her mistress for leave of absence for the next day, is afraid to do so now, and instead bursts into a theatrical cry, with her knuckles rubbing her eyes and tears rolling down her ludicrously-wrinkled face and dusky bosom. The moment the girl thinks herself out of sight, however, she is transformed into a laughing little nigger once more.
She stands in the passage giggling with all her might at the sight of the youngest house-gin, Lucy, ætat ten summers, who out in the quadrangle at the back is up to one of her favourite tricks. This consists of imitating the ungraceful waddle of that head of the culinary department, “Terrible Billy,” the old man-cook.
Poor little, large-mouthed, wriggling Lucy loves to get behind the spare, hardship-twisted, little old man as he crosses the yard, and burlesque his every action, to the delight of the black heads that appear at the doors and windows, and grin white-teethed plaudits at the little actress’s histrionic powers.
Every action of Lucy’s lithe little body, every gleam of her cunning little black eyes, was wicked to a degree. Needless to say, her powers of mimicry were perfect. Nothing escaped her active examination. To see the suddenness with which she could flash from merriment to passive stupidity when discovered in her pranks, or when Terrible Billy—a harmless, old periodical-drunkard retainer of Mr. Giles, whose awkward, stumbling gait she imitated exactly—turned round, was worth a good deal. Her bended little body shaking with bubbling merriment in her single garment of an old gown; the thin, ugly little face, against which her tiny black hands are pressed, as if to stifle the sound of her giggles, whilst she hobbles after the dilapidated old model; and then when he turns, flash! Lucy has changed as quickly into a dull, sad-looking child, who has apparently never known what laughter means, and has thoughts for nothing evidently but her work, to which she is sullenly creeping when “the Terrible” changes his position, and looks suspiciously at her with his bleared old eyes.
Dina is looking at and enjoying the fun, and quick as both she and Lucy are, they are caught by Miss Mundella, who has followed her untidy handmaid to the door.
Lileth says nothing, but rebukes the laggard Dina with a look so fraught with cruel meaning that the black girl melts into real tears this time, as her mistress returns to her seat on the verandah.
The sound of wheels is now heard approaching, and a buck-board buggy (a kind of light chaise) appears, driven by an elderly gentleman, with a very red face and very white linen suit and hat.
The trap is pulled up near the house, and the driver, taking a boatswain’s whistle from his pocket, blows a couple of shrill notes thereon, when two native boys, in dirty moleskin trousers turned up to the knee and grey flannel shirts, hasten up and take their station at the horses’ heads.
The occupant of the buggy, however, does not release the reins, but, calling up first one boy and then the other, hits each a couple of stinging cuts with his driving whip round their bare legs, and makes the recipients roar with agony.
“I’ll teach you to keep me waiting, you black beggars!” the red-faced man roars. “Couldn’t you hear me coming? Now, Tarbrush, yer’d better look out, for, swelp me, but if I have any more of your durned laziness I’ll flay you alive, like I did your cursed brother Bingo!”