“Esclavos otra ves,” (slaves again, sir,) rejoined the poor fellow, nowise daunted.
“And you, my darling,” said I to a nice well-dressed girl, who seemed to be the sister of the spokesman, “.what are you today, may I ask?”
She laughed—“Esclava, a slave to-day, but to-morrow I shall be free.”
“Very strange.”
“Not at all, senor; there are six of us in a family, and one of us is free each day, all to father there,” pointing to an old grey-headed negro, who stood by, leaning on his staff—“he is free two days in the week; and as I am going to have a child,”—a cool admission,—“I want to buy another day for myself too—but Don Ricardo will tell you all about it.”
The Don by this time chimed in, talking kindly to the poor creatures; but we had to retire, as dinner was now announced, to which we sat down.
Don Ricardo had been altogether Spanish in Santiago, because he lived there amongst Spaniards, and every thing was Spanish about him; so with the tact of his countrymen he had gradually been merged into the society in which he moved, and having married a very high caste Spanish lady, he at length became regularly amalgamated with the community. But here, in his mountain retreat, sole master, his slaves in attendance on him, he was once more an Englishman, in externals, as he always was at heart, and Richie Cloche, from the Lang Toon of Kirkaldy, shone forth in all his glory as the kind hearted landlord. His head household servant was an English, or rather a Jamaica negro; his equipment, so far as the dinner set out was concerned, was pure English; he would not even speak any thing but English himself.
The entertainment was exceedingly good,—the only thing that puzzled us uninitiated subjects, was a fricassee of Macaca worms, that is, the worm which breeds in the rotten trunk of the cotton-tree, a beautiful little insect, as big as a miller’s thumb, with a white trunk and a black head in one word, a gigantic caterpillar.
Bang fed thereon—he had been accustomed to it in Jamaica in some Creole families where he visited, he said—but it was beyond my compass. However, all this while we were having a great deal of fun, when Senora Campana addressed her husband—“My dear, you are now in your English mood, so I suppose we must go.” We had dined at six, and it might now be about eight. Don Ricardo, with all the complacency in the world, bowed, as much as to say, you are right, my dear, you may go, when his youngest niece addressed him.
“Tio—my uncle,” said she, in a low silver-toned voice, “Juana and I have brought our guitars”—