“Go home and tell them what a man can look like out here, after twenty years of total abstinence, and never going home once in all that time.” A mischievous gleam shot from his eyes as he spoke.
“How many services did you take yesterday?” I asked him.
“An early celebration and a baptism before I met you.” This had been about half-past nine in the morning, when I was sitting on one of the crazy tombs in the churchyard, with my attention divided between the sketch I had been making and my dread of being walked over by a huge spider, or chance scorpion, to say nothing of occasional futile attempts to thin the mosquito life of the island, for they always pestered me so when sketching that I had no conscientious scruples as to massacring them mercilessly.
“Yes,” I said; “then you had a second celebration after the eleven o’clock service, and you preached a good twenty minutes.”
“Did you time me?” I laughed. “Well!” continued he, “I had a children’s service in the afternoon, and evensong at six, so you will admit I had a fairly busy day.”
“What a pity they don’t send out our curates to do a good ten years in the colonies before giving them livings in England!” I exclaimed, thinking of some of the weaklings who complained of being overworked at home. Our conversation drifted to other topics. I said the black race struck me as being nothing more than grown-up children, and he agreed that that was the best way of regarding them. He told me of the reduced circumstances which some families owning, formerly, large estates had fallen into; this, according to him, being the result of reckless extravagance, and never putting aside for a rainy day.
“They must have had splendid incomes,” I commented.
“There’s no doubt of it,” assented he.
“What did they spend their money on?” I asked, thinking of the hundred and one ways, nowadays, in which money flies, and of the really few amusements that would present themselves in the middle of the eighteenth century to these planters.
“Themselves,” he answered, without hesitation; “in luxuriant living, in dress, and in having a good time at home.”