There was a moment's quick manipulation, while Aileen turned sick: a smothered gasp from Garth, and then a sharp click.
"There!" said the tall man, "all over; and you stood it like a brick, old man. Oh, poor kid—hold him, missus!" For Garth had suddenly grown limp and helpless in her arms.
"On'y fainted—can't blame him, neither," their new friend said. "Give him to me, missus, an' I'll lay him flat."
Garth opened his eyes some minutes later to find himself staring at the sky, with uncomfortable spears of grass tickling the back of his neck. His wrist was tightly bandaged, and there was an extremely unpleasant taste of brandy in his mouth. He felt queer, and very lazy; even though the spears of grass were very uncomfortable, it was far too much trouble to move. Then he saw his mother's face, white and strained as he had learned to know it during his illness, and he smiled at her weakly.
"Hallo, Mother!"
"Dear little son!" she whispered, and a tear fell on his face.
"Had a stiff time, didn't y', ol' chap?" said the tall man, smiling down from a height which seemed to Garth about sixty feet in the air. "Well, you're a man, anyway. I tell you, I've pulled joints in for full-grown men an' heard 'em howl like a dingo over it."
Garth's eyes sought and found his father's.
"Didn't want to cry," he said feebly.
"I'm proud of you, my son," Tom said. They smiled at each other.