“What will I have, ay? I’ll have that cur’s life if he comes at me agin, and I want to know, old nigger, if,”—here the rough customer spit some tobacco-juice on the floor—“I want to know if you kin ’commodate four or five gents for the night, ay?”
All of Clump’s spirit was aroused, and he stammered as he replied—
“No, mon; n–o–o–o! We dussen keeps no ho–o–o—hotel ’ere, we dussen. You’se find tabben ober end de town. Dis am Massa Tre–gel—Tre–gel—Massa Tregellin’s privet mansion.”
“Ho! ho!” answered the man, slapping his hat down on his head and spitting again. “Massa Tregellin’s house, is it? Look here, boys, you just tell your dad, when you see him, that he has got a foolish, consequential nigger and a mean, tumbledown affair of a hut, if it can’t ’commodate some poor sailors. Howsumever, I’ll go back to my lugger, and bad luck to your mansion! Old nig, look ’er here—perhaps we’ll see each other again.” He looked slowly all round the room, and went out, slamming the doors after him.
Fifteen minutes afterwards our tutors came in, and when they heard of our visitor Captain Mugford waxed wroth.
“I wish I had been here,” he exclaimed; “if I wouldn’t have put that scoundrel off soundings in about half a splice! The impudent fellow, to attempt to lord it in that style in a gentleman’s house. What do you think of it, Mr Clare, eh?”
“Oh, not much, Captain Mugford. The man was probably tipsy, and was of course a bully, or he would never have talked so before boys and a poor old negro. I am glad neither Walter nor Harry was in the room.”
“So am I, sir,” said Walter; “we were in the kitchen and came in when we heard the loud talking, just as the man slammed the doors in going out. We could have done nothing more than order him out.”
After tea we boys went into the kitchen again, leaving our tutors playing at chess, which Mr Clare was trying to teach Captain Mugford. That kitchen was a favourite resort of ours in the evenings, and Clump and Juno liked to have us there. There was a famous fire—three or four fresh logs singing over a red mass of coal; plenty of ashes; and a whistled tune with a jet of smoke right from the heart of each stick. The brass fire-dogs were extra bright, reflecting the blaze on all sides. Some chestnuts and potatoes were roasting in the ashes, and Clump had provided some cider to treat us to, this last night of ours on the cape. So we pulled our chairs close around the fire, Clump sitting at one end, almost inside the chimney-place, smoking his pipe, and Juno at the other end, also almost inside the chimney-place, and smoking, too, her pipe. Hi! How they grinned, and chatted, and smoked. After awhile, when we had had a full hour of real fun, quizzing the old folks, telling stories, eating chestnuts and potatoes, drinking cider, and listening to stories of the West Indies, Walter and Harry got up to clean their guns.
“Wen you’se cum ’ere nudder time, ’spect dese ole black folks be gwine ’way—be gwine ’crost de ribber Jordan?”—exclaimed Juno, with a long sigh.