Gathered In by Catherine Helen Spence — Read

It is not easy to describe Mrs. Oswald's appearance, except as to her bulk and her clothes; her face was so characterless, and was more remarkable for its want of expression than for anything else; her hair was of a neutral tint; her complexion of a uniform greyish paleness; her eyes small, pale and slow to apprehend even striking objects; her height less remarkable than her breadth. In speech she had a drawl, and her h's were, though not absent, very uncertain. Kenneth had his experience with Mrs. Honey to fall back upon, but she had been kept up better to the mark by her daughters, who had snubbed their mother's florid taste in dress, and would reconstruct her furniture remorselessly, so that in both these points she had been snubbed into better ways. But the general vapidness was similar in the two ladies. Perhaps on the whole Mrs. Oswald's natural nonentity was the more complete, and it was well that she should be distinguished by her clothes, which were changed with changing fashion and doubtful taste, forming a striking contrast to the fat lymphathic colourless countenance which retained in all circumstances its expression of uninterested acquiescence with things as they were. She could not make a joke to save her life. She could not even see one--although when she saw other people laughing around her she would insist on having the whole story minutely explained to her to the utter loss of its point, and her calm, "Oh, yes; I see it now!" without relaxation of the mouth or intelligent glance of the eye, had the effect of making the interpreter of the wit, or the humour, or the grotesque exaggeration, feel he must have performed his task very badly. Unfortunately she was not a Scotchwoman, to whom some national affinities might have appealed, and she could not understand the racy Doric of her husband and his friends. She was an Englishwoman by extraction, but had been born in New South Wales, and had found her way to Melbourne, and had by some inexplicable fascination induced George Oswald to marry her. She certainly at that time was a good cook and not a bad listener. She never differed from any one, and had no opinions of her own, and that to a somewhat overbearing man like George Oswald might have its charm.

This temper, as well as his love of strong liquors, had stood in the way of Kenneth's uncle in his beginning of life. In his first overseership he had been so hard on the men under him, exacting so much and granting so little, that his master thought he had lost more by that than he gained by his undoubted vigilance and practical knowledge. However, when he undertook the management for the brothers Dirom, Oswald had learned by experience, and steered his course much more wisely. At the outbreak of the diggings he did wonders under the greatest difficulties, doing the work of half-a-dozen men himself, and liberal enough to get hands when others were destitute. The Diroms were young men of good family, who had started with what in old days would have been called a considerable capital, and at first they had intended to work themselves. But Oswald managed so well that they took to Melbourne life, and enjoyed it, and they were paralysed by the aspect of things which only aroused their overseer's energy and called out all his resources and ingenuity.