Australian Tales - Setis

dial warns us to bed. To concentrate the product of a forty acre vineyard
into one puncheon, would be as feasible a task as to give you in one
sitting even the most meagre description of forty years of growing love
with that estimable creature who has just gone up-stairs. But I will try,
sir; and as I heard a celebrated lecturer from London say a few years ago,
‘I will throw out a few jets of thought for your after consideration.’
“Well, sir, my young wife took charge of her household with as much
grace and dignity as if she had been accustomed to control a large
establishment for years. Nobody ever heard her fussing and grumbling
about trifling troubles, peculiar to the colony, or complaining that she
had not been used to this or that inconvenience, as weak-minded women
often do, thinking thereby to increase their importance; whereas such airs
are usually to be regarded as signs that they never had half so many
conveniences before. Nanny was kind and considerate to her domestics,
still she was firm and mistress-like, and they all loved her. We had a
dozen assigned servants about the house, and with a few trifling
exceptions — scarcely worth mentioning — I never had any trouble with
them. Of course there was occasional wrangling among themselves,
which I did not pretend to hear. I seldom noticed trifles which did not
positively infringe my rules and regulations. Nanny managed her
household by the rule of kindness, and, on the whole, things went on
with perhaps rather more regularity than our town clock in those days.
Several of our servants stayed with us after they had received their
tickets-of-leave, and one woman lived with us for ten years after she
became free, in fact she lived with us till she died. For obvious reasons I
refrain from mentioning real names, sir, but I could give you — if there
were any advantage in doing so — the history of several of our servants,
who became thoroughly reformed characters, who lived useful lives and
died happy deaths, and whose descendants now deservedly rank among
the patriots and the benefactors of the country.
“About twelve months after her arrival, my dear Nanny presented me
with a darling little boy, which seemed to open a fresh avenue in my
heart for love to enter. I know you are fond of little boys and girls, sir,
for I have seen you hopping about like a kangaroo with a lot of children
after you screaming with fun; so you will understand how I loved my
precious boy, who, as he grew up and began to toddle about, seemed to
fill the house with rare music, and my heart with new joy. How dearly
Nanny and I prized him! too much, sir, I fear, for we almost idolized
him. By his thousand engaging pranks, and his winning little ways, he
wound himself round our hearts so tightly, that other and higher love was
almost excluded; and I believe that is why God saw it would be a mercy
to take our idol from us, and to ruffle our too even course of happiness a
little.
“Sickness prostrated our darling boy, and day after day, and night after