Under such circumstances the party started. Most of the skiffs and
canoes went off half an hour before Mrs. Willoughby was ready, and Joel
managed to keep Mike for he last, under the pretence of wishing his aid
in loading his own boat, with the bed and bedding from the hut. All was
ready, at length, and taking his seat, with a sort of quiet
deliberation, Joel said, in his drawling way, "You'll follow _us_,
Mike, and you can't be a thousand miles out of the way." Then he pulled
from the shore with a quiet, steady stroke of the sculls, that sent the
skiff ahead with great rapidity, though with much ease to himself.

Michael O'Hearn stood looking at the retiring skiff, in silent
admiration, for two or three minutes. He was quite alone; for all the
other boats were already two or three miles on their way, and distance
already prevented him from seeing the mischief that was lurking in
Joel's hypocritical eyes.

"Follow _yees_!" soliloquized Mike--"The divil burn ye, for a
guessing yankee as ye ar'--how am I to follow with such legs as the
likes of these? If it wasn't for the masther and the missus, ra'al
jontlemen and ladies they be, I'd turn my back on ye, in the desert,
and let ye find that Beaver estate, in yer own disagreeable company.
Ha!--well, I must thry, and if the boat won't go, it'll be no fault of
the man that has a good disposition to make it."

Mike now took his seat on a board that lay across the gunwale of the
skiff at a most inconvenient height, placed two sculls in the water,
one of which was six inches longer than the other, made a desperate
effort, and got his craft fairly afloat. Now, Michael O'Hearn was not
left-handed, and, as usually happens with such men, the inequality
between the two limbs was quite marked. By a sinister accident, too, it