516 



A TALE OF A TAR. 



curiosity, not unmixed with childish fear. At first, he ran behind his 

 mistress, and partly held her gown before him, while he stole a 

 glance at the sailor; but his appearance soon made so favourable an 

 impression upon the black letter of humanity that he ran between his 

 legs, and put forth all his strength to lift one of them off the ground, 

 exclaiming : 



" How de', massa sailor ?" 



" Come here, you imp of darkness !" said his mistress ; " is that 

 your manners?" 



" Yes," said the boy, grinning like an ape. 



"Have you any business with me, my good man?" asked Mrs. 

 Worthy. 



The sailor doused his Panama, made his best quarter-deck bow, 

 and said : 



" I axes your pardon, ma'am, but is your name Worthy ?" 



It is, Sir." 



" Hadn't you a slave-girl, a yellow neger, called Nancy?" 



" I have her still." 



"Please Ma'am, I wants to buy her." Mrs. Worthy was not a 

 little astonished at the abruptness of the proposal. 



" My good friend," said she, " if I wished to dispose of any of my 

 slaves, Nancy is the last I would part with : she is the best conducted 

 domestic I ever owned ; but I hope never to sell any. I am a widow 

 without children ; and such of my servants as behave well to me du- 

 ring my life, shall never serve master or mistress after I am gone 

 I will bequeath them their freedom." 



" God bless you, ma'am, for it " that's what I call acting like a 

 Christian." 



" But, tell me, what can a man in your line of life want with a 

 slave ?" 



" Why, ma'am, I doesn't want Nancy as a slave, I wishes to buy 

 her discharge." 



" What can make you wish to do that?" said Mrs. Worthy, whose 

 curiosity began to be excited. 



Jack, who was not much of an orator, told as briefly as he could 

 how poor Nancy had befriended him in his misfortunes ; he also 

 related his adventures after he entered on board his Majesty's frigate 

 the Bull Dog ; how he had been fortunate enough to be promoted 

 after ten years' service to the rank of boatswain. He told her that 

 lately the Bull Dog had taken three rich prizes out of Guadaloupe. 



" And so you see, ma'am," said Jack, " we drew a good part of 

 our prize money from the navy agents at Barbadoes ; and as Nancy 

 knew I must pass again through the Bocas,*" because, do you see, I 

 ate some cask o dollars, as she called them. * So,' says I to myself, I 

 says, ' I may as well save my money as join the lads of our ship in 

 their larks of frying watches." 



" Frying watches !" ejaculated Mrs. Worthy. 



" Yes, ma'am, in Carlisle Bay they broke up and fried two or 

 three hundred watches in frying-pans that they bought in Bridge 



* Bocas (mouths); the different entrances of the Gulf of Paria are so called. 



