Poor Aileen told me afterwards that if she'd thought for a moment
I could be turned she'd have gone down on her knees and never got up
till I promised to keep straight and begin to work at honest daily labour
like a man -- like a man who hoped to end his days in a good house,
on a good farm, with a good wife and nice children round him,
and not in a prison cell. Some people would call the first,
after years of honest work, and being always able to look every one
in the face, being more of a man than the other. But people have
different ways and different ideas.

`Come, Ailie,' I said, `are you going to whine and cry all night?
I shall be afraid to come home if you're going to be like this.
What's the message from father?'

She wiped away her tears, and, putting her hand on my shoulder,
looked steadily into my face.

`Poor boy -- poor, dear Dick,' she said, `I feel as if I should see
that fresh face of yours looking very different some day or other.
Something tells me that there's bad luck before you. But never mind,
you'll never lose your sister if the luck's ever so bad. Father sent word
you and Jim were to meet him at Broken Creek and bring your whips with you.'

`What in the world's that for?' I said, half speaking to myself.
`It looks as if there was a big mob to drive, and where's he to get a big mob
there in that mountainous, beastly place, where the cattle all bolt
like wallabies, and where I never saw twenty head together?'

`He's got some reason for it,' said Aileen sorrowfully. `If I were you
I wouldn't go. It's no good, and father's trying now to drag you and Jim