you leave, and for such an object
will gladly share the blame, if blame there be," he replied with a
well-satisfied look.

It was amusing to witness O'Driscoll's delight at the thoughts of the
expedition.

"Arrah! now, that's just as it should be!" he exclaimed; "and, my dear
boy, now, if you could but clap the sweet girl into the boat and pull
off with her, you'd be placing her out of danger, plaising yourself and
doing the right thing."

I did not argue the subject with him, as I had already done so in vain,
but I let him run on. From the alacrity with which he set about our
preparations it might have been supposed that he was the person most
interested in the result. A light boat was easily procured. Rockets
was of course ready to accompany us. We resolved to go without arms,
but to wear our uniforms that we might not be accused of being spies. I
wrote a letter, which I kept in my pocket, addressed to Colonel Carlyon,
informing him that my object in visiting the house where he was residing
was to request him to remove his family and friends from it, lest it
should become the scene of strife between the contending parties.
Should we be taken prisoners I intended to show this and to claim his
assistance to obtain our release. We left the ship early in the
evening, and with a fair wind our light skiff flew quickly over the
water towards the mouth of the Nansimond river. I never saw O'Driscoll
in such high feather. Had I been inclined to be in low spirits he would
have kept them up. Commend me to such a companion in all cases of this
sort, he joked, he told good stories, he sang and rattled on without
cessation. It was sufficiently dark when we neared the mouth of the
river to enable us, with our sail lowered, to enter without much chance
of being seen from the shore. Though the wind was fair, of course after
that we could not venture to carry sail, so we took it by turns to steer
while the other two pulled. Lights were glimmering in Nansimond as we
passed, but we gave the town a wide berth, and then had little to
apprehend except from a stray boat, till we got up to Mackey's Mills.
We kept a sharp look-out, to avoid any boat crossing or coming down the
stream. As we glided by the mills we could hear voices of people
speaking in them, but we kept near the opposite bank, and no one, we
fancied, saw us. Of course our oars were muffled, and as we sat as low
as we could in our little boat, very sharp eyes wo