"Orders, please, ma'am," Tom said, looking up from the digestive apparatus of the little engine. "Where do you want to go?"
"I want to explore this arm of the lake," Aileen replied promptly. "You know, we have never been up to the end, and we've always planned to do so. We might get some fishing in the pools, 'Possum says; and if we don't, we could go down to the lake itself after lunch and fish in earnest. Does that meet with your worshipful approval?"
"Sounds very jolly," Tom said. "All right, then, we'll go exploring first. Ready?"
They slid away from the little jetty, and turned up the arm of the lake. It was like a river pushing itself in among the hills. Near its outlet it was wide, and on stormy days there was a choppy sea at its mouth; but as it wound its sinuous course inland it grew smooth and tranquil and even narrower, save that now and then at a sudden turn it broadened into a deep and quiet pool. Then it would wind away again, each time seeming the last, until at length it narrowed to nothing, and the blue water vanished in a tangle of driftwood and rubbish brought by the slow tide to the end of its tortuous journey.
They swung round bend after bend. Gum and wattle trees bordered the water: and sometimes they came to a little clearing, where a settler's cottage stood, trim and neat in its setting of orchard and garden, with fowls pecking contentedly near the homestead fences, and perhaps barefooted children running about. One such clearing led to 'Possum's home, though the trees hid the house; they passed the little jetty where lay the sailing boat which had so nearly cost two lives—little the worse apparently for its long immersion. Two fishermen had towed it in next day and righted it—empty of all spare gear, but without damage. 'Possum gave a little shudder as she looked at it.
"No more sailing for me just yet awhile!" she uttered. "I seem to have lost me taste for it!"
They went on and on, winding and twisting through the forest, which grew thicker and thicker. Often it seemed certain that they had come to the end, as they entered a pool with no apparent outlet; but, as they glided farther, the water opened before them in another bend, and yet another, and another. Deep fern gullies came down to the water's edge, dark and beautiful, and full of the chiming of bell-birds: and sometimes they heard the quick swish and crack of the stockwhip bird. They landed in one gully, where 'Possum said she had twice seen lyre-birds: and by great good luck, and patiently sitting on a log for twenty minutes, they actually caught a glimpse of a pair of the queer, shy birds, dancing solemnly on a mound, uttering strange sounds.
"They're copyin'—they're just born mimics," 'Possum whispered. "Listen—they've heard a sawmill somewhere!" And indeed the sounds were nothing but the harsh rip of a saw through timber. They changed in a moment to the yap of a dog: which so enchanted Garth that he fell bodily off the log, and the lyre-birds promptly disappeared.
"Well, you are a goat!" said Tom.
"I just am," Garth admitted penitently: "I don't know what made me overbalance. I'm sorry."