"Oh, fill it," he said, fetching the pail, "the road is beginning to tell on the old wretch."
"'Bout time," murmured Miss Cragwell, who'd been a fixture at The Turning for over thirty years.
She half-filled the pail with molasses, burst a bag of flour into it and began mixing the mash with a ladle.
"Well, I suppose this is her last trip to Waterford—she's entitled to a pension for the rest of her life, the horny old nag."
He took the mare the foaming mash and returned to be confronted by a cup of chocolate, a knot of burnt cane and a tasty banana tart. Among bill twirlers, mule cart drivers, and cork-hatted overseers and estate owners, Mother Cragwell's "drops" and sweet bread, turnovers and cassava pone, were famous to the farthest ends of the Ba'bajan compass.
He cordially sat down to the mulatto's informal hospitality. "I knew," he observed, "that I'd have to wait till I reached The Turning before I could prove I was back in the colony." He took a relishing sip and the old creole's glare fell.
"Mas' Prout," she said, "yo bes' don't go down de gully to-night, yo' hear?"
"Why, what's happening in the gully, Mother Cragwell?" he smiled, splitting the sugar cane. "Is the man in the canes prowling about? Or do you think the duppies will be haunting Rayside's tracks?"
But the young Briton's banter chilled the old mulattress. "If yo' know what is good fo' yo'self, yo' bes' hear wha' Oi tell yo'," was all she said.