The speaker descended, untied the frayed painter, and hauled the dug-out to a point where, the bank being higher, embarkation was more easy.  He dissuaded the navigators from sitting on the boards placed over the gunwales, as likely to be, what he called, parlous, and recommended that the boards be placed on the floor of the craft to keep the water off their “paants.”  The fishermen consented, and sat down safely at each end facing one another, with his assistance to hold the dug-out steady, the dominie in the bow and the lawyer in the stern.  They thanked their ally, bade him good afternoon, and proceeded to paddle.  Ben Toner laughed, and cried to Coristine:  “I’ll lay two to one on you, Mister, for you’ve got the curnt to haylp you.”  The dugout, in spite of the schoolmaster’s fierce paddling, was moving corkscrew-like in the opposite direction, owing largely to the current, but partly to the superior height of the lawyer, which gave his paddle a longer sweep.  Still, he found progress slow, till a happy thought struck him.

“Wilks, my boy, it’s paddling our own canoe we are, but too much that way.  We’re a house divided against itself, Wilks.  Either you must turn round or I must, and, if I do, then you’ll be the stern and I the bow.”

“I thought there was something wrong, Corry, but the excitement incident on a new sensation absorbed my attention.  Of course, I shall move, as it would be very confusing, not to say ridiculous, to invert the relative positions of the boat.”

“Then, Wilks dear, wait till I paddle her near the bank, for fear of accidents.”

When the bank was reached, the dominie landed, picked up his board and placed it farther back, then sat down gingerly, with his legs spread out before him, and began paddling on the same side as his companion, which zigzagged the frail craft more than ever, and finally brought it to the shore.  Ben Toner, who had been laughing at the city innocents, ran down to a point opposite the dug-out, and told them to paddle on opposite sides, giving directions how to steer with one of the emaciated propellers.  After that, the course of the vessel was a source of continual self-commendatory remark by the voyageurs.

After a while, they came to a wooden bridge, built upon piles resting in the stream.  “This,” said the schoolmaster, “is the Pons sublicius, like that which Ancus Martius built over the Tiber.  Shall we shoot it, Corry, or shall we call a halt and proceed to fish?”

The dug-out bumped on the piles, and the navigators trembled, but Wilkinson, bravely gathering his legs under him and rising to his knees on the board, threw his arms round a pile, when, in spite of Coristine’s efforts, the craft slewed round and the stern got under the bridge ahead of the bow.

“Hold on, Wilks,” the lawyer cried; “another bump like that and the old thing’ll split in two.  Now, then, we’ll drop the paddles and slip her along the bridge to the bank.  There’s a hole under that birch tree there, and some fine young birches that will do for rods back of it.  Doesn’t the birch make you feel like England, home and duty, Wilks?”