"I wish you would be nice enough to forget the only occasion in my life when I did 'swoon,' as you call it," she said. "I truly won't do it again—I'm too ashamed of it. By the way, isn't that man of Mr. O'Connor's coming over to-day?"
"The chap he calls 'Possum? I'm not sure," Tom answered. "We won't stay at home on the chance of his coming, at any rate; we can tell Horrors to let him know what direction we take, and he wouldn't mind riding after us. After all, we can't go far. But even a little way will be better than nothing. I do want you to forget cooking-pots for a day."
It was still quite early when they left the house. The long grass was wet, but overhead fleecy white clouds swam in a sky of perfect blue, and were mirrored in the blue of the lake below. Just the day for a holiday, Garth said, capering ahead of his father and mother, while Bran raced in pursuit of skimming swallows, having been recalled sternly from the more hopeful pastime of chasing cows. The spirit of the morning had even entered into the elderly Jane, who was seen to kick up her heels and gallop across a hill-side, in stiff-legged imitation of the more youthful Roany. Everything was glad of the rain—especially now that the rain had ceased.
"Rain is like med'cine," Garth said sagely—"simply beastly when you're taking it, but it makes you feel better."
They followed the track leading down to the lake, skirting the fern gully, where the tiny creek had become a most excitable stream, leaping downward in a series of baby waterfalls, with all the ferns on its banks awash. The great tree-ferns overhead dripped steadily, but the sunlight lay upon their spreading fronds, turning the dewdrops into jewels. Far above them, bell-birds, hidden in the branches of a gum tree, chimed as if they could not be busy enough in ringing to welcome the glory of the morning.
The lake itself lay clear and blue, broken now and then by the splash of a leaping fish. Just below their land it turned, widening to a great pool: but they saw now that it was only an arm of the larger lake, and, beyond, it narrowed until it was like a river. A footpath led along its shores, and they followed it in single file. Sometimes the cleared paddocks came down to the water's edge, bare of timber: sometimes they passed through belts of forest where shy Bush creatures slipped noiselessly away through the undergrowth as they approached. They caught a glimpse of a wallaby hopping off to shelter; and once they came upon a native bear, sitting in a little gum tree, very still and solemn. Garth uttered a shout of delight.
"Oh, isn't he jolly, Daddy! What is he?"
"His book name is Koala, but we used to call him just 'monkey-bear' when I was your size," Tom answered. "He's a nice old chap, isn't he?"
"He just is!" breathed Garth, looking at the soft, grey, furry thing with its chubby body and wide, innocent face. "Daddy, do you think I could take him home and tame him?"
The monkey-bear looked with extreme disfavour at Bran, who was barking frantically at the foot of his tree and making ineffectual leaps towards him.