ting his estimable
family know what he was up to? Charley Marden, whose father had promised
to cane him if he ever stepped foot on sail or row boat, came down to
the wharf in a sour-grape humor, to see us off. Nothing would tempt
him to go out on the river in such a crazy clam-shell of a boat. He
pretended that he did not expect to behold us alive again, and tried to
throw a wet blanket over the expedition.

"Guess you'll have a squally time of it," said Charley, casting off
the painter. "I'll drop in at old Newbury's" (Newbury was the parish
undertaker) "and leave word, as I go along!"

"Bosh!" muttered Phil Adams, sticking the boathook into the string-piece
of the wharf, and sending the Dolphin half a dozen yards toward the
current.

How calm and lovely the river was! Not a ripple stirred on the glassy
surface, broken only by the sharp cutwater of our tiny craft. The sun,
as round and red as an August moon, was by this time peering above the
water-line.

The town had drifted behind us, and we were entering among the group of
islands. Sometimes we could almost touch with our boat-hook the shelving
banks on either side. As we neared the mouth of the harbor, a little
breeze now and then wrinkled the blue water, shook the spangles from
the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral mist-wreaths that still clung
alongshore. The measured dip of our oars and the drowsy twitterings
of the birds seemed to mingle with, rather than break, the enchanted
silence that reigned about us.

The scent of the new clover comes back to me now, as I recall that
delicious morning when we floated away in a fairy boat down a river like
a dream!

The sun was well up when the nose of the Dolphin nestled against the
snow-white bosom of Sandpeep Island. This island, as I have said before,
was the last of the cluster, one side of it being washed by the sea. We
landed on the river-side, the sloping sands and quiet water affording us
a good place to moor the boat.

It took us an hour or more to transport our stores to the spot selected
for the encampment. Having pitched our tent, using the five oars to
support the canvas, we got out our lines, and went down the rocks
seaward to fish. It was early for cunners, but we were lucky enough to
catch as nice a mess as ever you saw. A cod for the chowder was not so
easily secured. At last Binny Wallace hauled in a plump little fellow
clustered all over with flaky silver.

To skin the fish, build our fir