Mrs. Harewood took great pains to correct this evil, especially on Ellen’s account; for as Matilda was not covetous, she was ever ready to share with her only companion the raisins and almonds, figs, gingerbread, biscuits, or comfits, which she was continually munching; and this Mrs. Harewood had a particular objection to, not only because it is bad for the health, and lays the foundation for innumerable evils in the constitution, but because it renders young people hateful in their appearance, since nothing can be more unladylike or disagreeable, than the circumstance of being called to speak when the mouth is full, or displaying the greediness of their appetite, by cramming between meals, stealing out of a room to fill the mouth in the passage, or silently moving the jaws about, and being obliged to blush with shame when caught in such disgraceful tricks.
In order to guard against this habit, Mrs. Harewood positively forbade her servants from bringing any thing of the kind into the house; but poor Zebby, from habit, still obeyed her young Missy, and, besides, she had no idea that the enjoyments of fortune were good for any thing else than to pamper the appetite; so that it was a long time before she could be brought to desist from so pernicious a practice. As, however, the mind of Matilda strengthened, and she began to employ herself diligently in those new branches of education now imparted to her, she insensibly became weaned from this bad practice; and at length, inspired with a sincere desire to imitate her young friends, she broke herself entirely from this disgusting habit, and willingly adopted, in every thing, the simple wholesome fare partaken by her young friends.
It was undoubtedly owing to this temperance that she preserved her health, and even enjoyed it more than ever, notwithstanding the change of climate; but, alas! the good sense, resolution, and forbearance she thus acted with, was not followed by the humble companion of her voyage.
The change Zebby experienced in Mr. Harewood’s comfortable kitchen, from the simple food to which, as a slave, she had been accustomed in the West Indies, was still greater, though in an exactly contrary line, than that of her young lady. Zebby soon learned to eat of the good roast and boiled she sat down to, and exchanged the simple beverage of water for porter and beer, in consequence of which she became much disordered in her health; and when Mrs. Harewood prescribed a little necessary physic, as her mild persuasions were enforced by no threat, and the prescription appeared to the unenlightened negro a kind of punishment she had no inclination to endure, there was no getting her to swallow the bitter but salutary potion.
Zebby had been a long time feverish and subject to headaches, when the circumstance mentioned in the last chapter took place, which so exhilarated her spirits, that she declared she would be the first person who should use the new mangle which “her pretty Missy givee poor Sally.”
It is well known that the negroes are naturally averse to bodily labour, and that, although their faithfulness and affection render them capable of enduring extreme hardship and many privations, yet they are rarely voluntarily industrious; and it was therefore a proof of Zebby’s real kindness, that she thus exerted herself.
Unhappily, a mode of labour entirely new to her, and, in her present sickly state, requiring more strength than she possessed, although, had she used it freely some time before, it would have done her good, was now too much for her, and she came home complaining, in doleful accents, that “poor Zebby have achies all over—is sometimes so hot as Barbadoes, sometimes so cold as London.”
Mrs. Harewood was well aware that the good-tempered negro was seized with fever, and she sent immediately for her apothecary, who confirmed her fears, and prescribed for her; but as there was no getting her to swallow medicine, he was obliged to bleed her, and put a blister on her head, which, however, did not prevent her from becoming delirious for several days.
Poor Zebby was, at this time, troubled with the most distressing desire to return to Barbadoes, and all her ravings were to this purpose; and they were naturally very affecting to Matilda, who never heard them without being a little desirous of uniting her own wishes to behold her native country, especially when she heard it coupled with the name of that only, and now fondly-beloved parent, from whom she was so far separated, and her tears flowed freely when she visited the bedside of the poor African. But her sorrow increased exceedingly when she learned the danger in which poor Zebby stood, and found that her death was daily expected by all around; bitter indeed were the tears she then shed, and she would have given the world to have recalled those hasty expressions, angry blows, and capricious actions, which had so often afflicted her humble attendant, whose fidelity, love, humility, and services, she now could fully estimate, and whose loss she would deeply deplore.
Mrs. Harewood endeavoured to comfort her under this affliction, by leading her to view the consolations which religion offers to the afflicted in general, and she explained the nature of that beneficent dispensation whereby the learned and the ignorant, the poor and the rich, the slave and his master, are alike brought to receive salvation as the free gift of God, through the mediation of our merciful Redeemer; and comforted her with the hope, that although poor Zebby’s mind was but little enlightened, and her faith comparatively uninformed, yet as, to the best of her knowledge, she had been devout and humble, resting her claims for future happiness on that corner-stone, “the goodness of God in Christ Jesus,” so there was no reason to fear that she would not leave this world for a far better, for “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”