"No; you go out, old son. She's goin' to sleep for a long while, this time, an' what's more, she's goin' to be better when she wakes."
"Sure, 'Poss?" he asked eagerly.
"Dead certain. An' it'll be miles nicer for her to see you with a bit of colour in your washy old cheeks than lookin' white from sittin' all day in her room. You go an' find your dad, an' tell him not to worry about her, an' give him a hand in the garden. I'll be on the listen, an' I'll call you the d'reckly minute she wakes." She watched the little fellow catch his felt hat from its peg and run out with his news.
"My word, he's a dear kid!" she muttered.
For all her brave words to Tom, she was very tired. The shock of the child's danger had told on her: her arms and shoulders ached cruelly from the long, hard pull, and from the wild struggle to keep afloat, with Garth a dead weight upon her and the current tearing at them, sucking them away from the shore she had tried so vainly to reach. She, too, had had her dreams of horror—in which she had fought wildly to land on a shore that had continually slipped away, and had felt choking waters rising over her head. She shivered now, as the thought of them came over her, and then fought it back resolutely.
"Don't you be a silly ass, 'Possum O'Connor!" she told herself. "A little bit o' work's what you want." Thus dealing with herself, she seized a broom, and made a furious onslaught upon the kitchen; and having valiantly routed seven hens that had come uninvited into the back yard, felt considerably better.
It was afternoon when Aileen awoke—this time with light in her eyes and colour in her cheeks:—able to take the soup that 'Possum brought her, and to smile at Garth and Tom as they perched on her bed and entertained her with news of the estate, as Tom gravely called it. There was always so much to tell of the estate each day; news of garden, or fowl-run, or pigsty; fresh flowers blossoming, a panel of fencing broken down by a cow with a thirst for exploring, or a raid after calves that had escaped through the gap and distributed themselves up the most scrub-grown gully they could find. To-day the pigs had taken advantage of Horrors having opened the gate of their sty and then fallen to dreaming; with the result that Garth and his father had had a long hunt, and were considerably heated.
"But we got them back, all right," Garth said triumphantly. "Daddy let me go pig-sticking with a long bit of tea-tree, and you should have seen them run! It was awful fun, but I never got near them!"
"I don't reckon you would—much!" said 'Possum. "Now, how about tea?"
"Ah, do have it in here!" Aileen begged. "If you don't mind, that is?" A supposition which induced mirth on the part of her hearers.