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Only in kitchens and out-offices and stables was the gas permitted to blaze merrily for the illumination of cooks and scullions, grooms and helpers. Miss Granger only lingered long enough to trifle with a cluster of purple grapes before giving the signal for withdrawal Her father started up to open the dining-room door, with a little sudden sigh.
On that morning the dwelling-house and mostly all the out-offices of Gerald Cavanagh bore, in stir and bustle, a stronger resemblance to the activity of so many bee-hives about to swarm than to anything else to which we can think of comparing them. Mirth in all its shapes, of laughter, glee, and song, rang out in every direction.
To resume: Jamie was frequently clothed by me, and was asked to sleep in the kitchen, or in one of the out-offices, but all to no purpose: his clothes, he never kept a week, and he invariably took his departure at sun-set to sleep in the open air.
Their principal dread, however, was from an attack upon their premises at night; and, as fearful threats were held out that such an attack would be made, Purcel, who, as the reader knows, was a man of great wealth, engaged men to build a strong and high wall about his house and out-offices, which could now be got at only through a gate of immense strength, covered with thick sheet-iron, and bound together by bars of the same metal, in such a way that even the influence of fire could not destroy it, or enable an enemy to enter.
They now assailed the gate, but soon found that there was little likelihood of forcing an entrance without heavier implements than those they had in their possession. On ascertaining that this was not practicable, they began to fire at the roof of the dwelling-house, and at those of the out-offices, with the hope that some portion of the wadding, when lighted, might ignite them.
Purchasers of land at the above-named rate, have, I believe, found their bargains profitable, notwithstanding the heavy expense they had to incur in clearing and fencing the arable portion of it, in addition to the outlay for a dwelling, out-offices, &c.
The assailants then began to fire at the thatch of the dwelling house, as well as on the out-offices, with the intent of setting them in flames; and after several attempts, they ultimately succeeded in igniting the thatch of a detached cow-house, which stood out from the other buildings, and the wind, unfortunately happening to blow from that quarter to the other offices, carried the fire to them, by which they were soon in a blaze.
Penang, at one end of the Straits, and Singapore at the other, have destroyed its prosperity; and it is now a poverty-stricken place, with little or no trade. The town is built in the old Dutch fashion, each house with its out-offices forming a square with a yard in the centre.
The out-offices ran in a long line behind the dwelling house, so that both ran parallel with each other, and stood pretty close besides, for the yard was a narrow one. In the meantime, the night, though dry, was dark and stormy. The wind howled through the adjoining trees like thunder, roared along the neighboring hills, and swept down in savage whirlwinds to the bottom of the lowest valleys.
A capital even of 500l. will enable him to fence his land, build himself a bush-house and out-offices, and maintain his family for two years; by which time it will be hard indeed, if he has not land enough under crop to return him something handsome.
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