“Give me some beer!” cried she again, in so fierce a manner that the boys started, and poor Ellen blushed very deeply, not only from the sense of shame which she felt for the vulgarity of the young lady’s manners, but from a kind of terror, on hearing such a shrill and threatening voice.
The servant still took no notice of her words, though he did not do it with an air of defiance, but rather as if it were not addressed to him.
The little angry child muttered, loud enough to be heard—“What a fool the wretch is!” but as nobody answered what was in fact addressed to no one, she was at length compelled to look for redress to Mrs. Harewood, whom, regarding with a mixture of rage and scorn, she now addressed—“Pray, ma’am, why don’t you tell the man to give me some beer? I suppose he’ll understand you, though he seems a fool, and deaf.”
“My children are accustomed to say—‘Please, Thomas, give me some beer;’ or, ‘I’ll thank you for a little beer;’ and the loud rude manner in which you spoke, probably astonished and confused him. As, however, I certainly understand you, I will endeavour to relieve you.—Pray, Thomas, be so kind as to give Miss Hanson some beer,” said Mrs. Harewood.
Thomas instantly offered it; but the little girl cried out in a rage—“I won’t have it—no! that I won’t, from that man: I’ll have my own negro to wait—that I will!—Must I say please to a servant? must a nasty man in a livery be kind to me?—no! no! no! Zebby, Zebby, I say, come here!”
The poor black woman, hearing the loud tones of her young lady, to which she had been pretty well used, instantly ran into the room, before Mr. Harewood had time to prevent it, and very humbly cried out—“What does Missy please wanty?”
“Some beer, you black beetle!”
“Is, Missy,” said the poor woman, with a sigh, reaching the beer from Thomas with a trembling hand, as if she expected the glass to be thrown in her face.
Charles had with great difficulty refrained from laughter on the outset of this scene; but indignation now suffused his countenance. The young vixen was an acute observer, and, had she not been cruelly neglected, might have been a sensible child. It instantly struck her, that his features disputed her right; and, determined not to endure this from any one, she instantly threw the beer in the face of poor Zebby, saying—“There’s that for you, madam.”
It was not in the forbearance of the children to repress their feelings; even Edmund exclaimed—“What a brute!”