Читать книгу Gathered In - Catherine Helen Spence - Страница 15

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"You've been much longer with Mr. Oswald than there was the least occasion for," said the mistress of the house. "Nobody manages him so well as Mick, and the less he's interfered with the better. I never look near him myself. I suppose the smoking-room is in a horrid mess. All the rest of the house has got a thorough turn up, and been cleaned from top to bottom. With both Mr. Oswald and Jim out of the way, it is a good opportunity to get the girls set to work, instead of their idling their time and carrying on and flirting with the men about; and I think you will find it hard to see a speck of dust out of Mr. Oswald's den. All gentlemen hate to see cleaning, but they growl if it ain't done. I hope you are fond of bezique, for it is the only amusement I can offer you."

This was one thing Mrs. Oswald could do, and was fond of; not that she was by any means a good player, but she liked to take a hand, and was less languid over it than anything else. The magazines she spoke of as her only reading were simply fashion journals, where she studied the costumes and the fancywork, and ordered imitations from Melbourne, but she did not read even the serial tales or short stories which were continued with those interesting matters. She did not sew, she did not knit. She had servants enough to do all the household work, and she liked to come out upon them to see that things were not slighted, and that they gave her all their time. She occasionally went into the kitchen to cook special dishes, when she required a great deal of waiting on, and called attention to their excellence when they came to table. And she thoroughly enjoyed her meals, of which she had five every day, unmoved by the increasing stoutness which made her more trying to fit, and was a great grievance to her dressmaker. When the substantial tea was followed by an equally substantial supper only with wine and beer substituted for the milder beverage, she did as great justice to it, and after expressing surprise that Kenneth could not follow her example, she had another game at bezique, took her candle, said good--night, and went to bed for her customary sleep of ten hours.

Mick O'Hearn, who had some sharpness and some sympathy, had perceived that the new comer felt his first evening at Tingalpa a very trying one. He brought Kenneth a cigar, one of his master's very best, and when it was declined with thanks--as he did not smoke, Mick looked on him a little puzzled as to how he could be worked upon.

"Try it, Sir; there's nothing that quietens one like tobacco. The master's been blowing me up and blackguarding me because I think it's time he pulled up, and after such bullyragging, I felt like to fly out in the kitchen at every mother's son and daughter of them, till Biddy, she put the pipe in my mouth with a smile, after she had just touched it wid her rosy lips, and faith the first whiff was like magic. The master will be all right in two or three days, but the horrors is to come, and my hands 'ill be full trying to get him square without a fall back, which is worse than the first plunge; and if so be as you would take a run to the outstation at Cowarrel and stop a few days with the Manager, then I think I'd get him straight faster, for he'll be asking for you, and the fewer he sees the better."

"But what would Mrs. Oswald say?" asked Kenneth.

"Oh! she takes everything mighty asy, leastways what does not touch her own skin or her own stomach, as Biddy says," answered Mick.

"And what would the Manager say?"

"He'd be as pleased as Punch to see you, and if you're agreeable, I'll send the lad with you and the pair of greys. I'd not trust him or you wid the bays till I know how you handle the ribbons; but the greys will do."

Kenneth felt very grateful for Mick's suggestion. To get away even for two or three days to people to whom he was not bound, about whose conduct he might be indifferent, to have a little breathing-space in which to plan his future work, was a boon too precious to be rejected.

"And you must not judge of the master by what you saw to-night. There's no better head in the Castlehurst district than his, barring the brandy, and the heart is in the right place. It's a pity your arriving was so contrairy. He'll be vexed when he comes to himself; but say as little as you can. Let's hope he'll disremember it."

Mick had planned a very early start for Mr. Kenneth, but the latter thought he must explain things to Mrs. Oswald first. She would have preferred his company, for she felt a little dull, but it was not to be supposed that a lady who took advantage of her husband's deep, solitary carouse and her son's absence with questionable company, to give her house a thorough cleaning, would feel the departure of her strange nephew very keenly. She merely hoped that on his return he would find Jim at home, and Mr. Oswald himself, and in the meantime she had found a recipe for making curry, Indian fashion, in the cookery column of her latest fashion journal, which she would try to carry out, and would have it perfect by the time she collected her family round her. Mr. Oswald always liked something hot and relishing when he took to eating after ten days of drinking.

"The master's taken the turn," said Mick as he saw the new arrival into the buggy. "You'll find him quite compos when ye come back, and ready to tell you all his plans. Faith, and he'll find you a comfort to him, and may be you'll be the salvation of Mr. Jim, for he's getting himself mixed up wid the dirty lot at that Castlehurst."

Kenneth found his uncle a very different man when he returned from Cowarrel, and he himself had gathered some strength to face his difficulties. The primary object which his uncle had in view, the teaching or reclaiming of his son, appeared to the young man likely to be as great a failure as Harry Stalker would have predicted, but surely it was possible for him to make himself useful in other ways than that chalked out for him by his uncle and aunt.

His training and tastes had been towards languages, literature and metaphysics; but of what use was the culture he had received and the thinking he had done, if they could not make him stronger in all directions? He must school himself now differently, learn from his uncle and his employés all about sheep and cattle and horses, study the meteorological tables, and turn his ingenuity towards increasing or saving the water supply with as little outlay as possible. The narrative of the intelligent overseer at Cowarrel of the heavy losses during the last drought interested him greatly, and he listened attentively to his suggestions for better preparations for the next bad season, so as to reduce the losses to a minimum. If he did no other good, he delighted Robert Horne by the respectful attention he paid to all he said, and as he had known something of rural affairs as a boy, and had kept up his interest in them in his holidays, he took up the points of a bullock or a sheep, or the feeding qualities of grass and salt bush, in a very creditable manner for a new chum, especially for a new chum fresh from the College.

"Mr. Oswald is a keen man, no doubt," said the overseer, "and can drive a hard bargain; but he's not a bad sort. He sticks to his word when he's once given it. And he knows a good servant when he has got him. He never interferes with my management. If I dismiss a hand, he need never carry tales to the master. If I say a man's worth having, he'd never doubt my judgement, even though the man was as surly to himself as a bear with a sore head. Now Mr. Jim is the very opposite; he'll never fill his father's shoes, and if he was much at Cowarrel, I'd lose every man on the place. It's all his father can do to keep the Tingalpa hands together. For ever on his high horse, for ever on the find-fault, taking men from their regular work to run after him and his whimsies. But he's far keener to go and spend his time and money at Castlehurst than to trouble us at the out-station."

"It is a pity that he's an only son," said Kenneth.

"That's true; and of course he has money to spend and little wit to guide him. I wonder the master did not have you out sooner."

"He wished me to complete my education first."

"You'll find Mr. Jim both very backward and very unwilling to push on. He may be able to read, that I cannot speak for, but as for writing, it's just awful."

"Oh, writing is easily learned," said Kenneth, "and nobody thinks that of so much consequence as other matters."

Robert Horne prided himself on his caligraphy, and attached great importance to what his master called "a good hand of write". He saw too that this Edinburgh student, who was taking down notes of various matters, wrote a clear bold hand, and made capital figures, and reckoned up in his head quickly and accurately, and he thought it was mere modesty on his part to depreciate these good gifts. He tried Kenneth on horseback, and found that he kept his seat, except with a buck-jumper, which was scarcely to be expected of a new comer. They went over the run together, and he showed the tyro the marks of inferiority in shape or vigour, or evenness or fineness of wool which condemn the animal to be culled out and sold, and not bred from, so that the high character of the flocks and of the staple should be kept up and improved. He made Kenneth acquainted with the men, with the horses, and the dogs, and pointed out the distinguishing characteristics of each with the delight of laying down the law to a perfectly fresh and appreciating listener.

"You'll do, Mr. Kenneth, I see you'll do. Beast or body, you see the way to manage them, and get the best out of them, whereas that poor lad, Mr. James, if he takes even a horse or a dog in hand he spoils them, sure as fate. He has a great down on me, I know, and you'll hear him full of complaints about my management. He'd like to see me turned off, and a smoother-tongued man put in my place; but Mr. Oswald, he's satisfied, and that is enough for me."