But the absurdity of our entertainer having shown his expertness as a shot by murdering his own poultry was too much, and it was with the greatest difficulty any of us could keep his gravity. We returned to the house--shifted, breakfasted, and that forenoon returned to Ballywindle, where we spent an exceedingly pleasant week with our friends Twig and Flamingo, who, in the mean time, prevailed on Mr Frenche to make a return visit to them in Kingston, and we accordingly prepared for our trip. It was the Saturday before the Monday on which we meant to start. I was playing at piquet with Mr Twig; my uncle and Flamingo were lounging about the piazza, and the horses were ready saddled for an airing, at the door, when my antagonist and I were startled by a loud rushing, or rather roaring noise, that seemed to pass immediately overhead. "A flock of teal," thought I, remembering the exploit at Rory Macgregor's. Simultaneously all the shutters, which, according to the usual West India fashion, opened outwards, were banged to with great force--doors were slammed, and the whole house shook with the suddenness of the gust. "Hillo," said Twig, "what's all this?" as his point, quint, and quatorze were whisked out of his hand, and a shower of gritting sand, with a dash of small pebbles in it, was driven against our faces through the open windows, like a discharge of peas. My uncle and his companion had halted in their walk, and seemed as much surprised as we were. Presently the noise ceased, and all was calm again where we were. We naturally looked down into the mill-yard below us to see what would take place there. It was as busy as usual--the negro boys and girls were shouting to the mules and steers, as they drove them round the circles of the cattle mills--the mule drivers, each with a tail of three mules loaded with canes from the hilly cane-pieces, where waggons could not work, were stringing into the yard, and spanking their whips. The wains, each with a team of six oxen, yoked two and two, built up with canes as high as a hay waggon, were rumbling and rattling on their jolty axletrees, as they were dragged through deep clayey ruts, that would have broken Macadam's heart to have looked on; the boilermen were shouting in the boiling-house, their voices, from the reverberation of the lofty roof, rising loud above the confusion, as if they had been speaking in masks, like the Greek and Roman actors of old; and the negro girls were singing cheerily in parts, their songs blending with their loud laughter, as they carried bundles of canes to be ground, or balanced their large baskets full of _trash_ on their heads, while the creaking of the mill machinery, and the crashing of the canes between the rollers, added to the buzz.