Mr. Buckstone was satisfied. How could he be otherwise after such liberal concession on the part of the lady? He now occupied himself in an examination of the interior structure of the boat. One of the narrow ceiling boards was loose, and without asking to whom the craft belonged, he tore it from its place. With his pocket-knife he soon fashioned it into something that had a remote resemblance to an oar. “Now, Miss Kingman, if you will permit me to sit in the stern of the boat, I will try to scull her ashore,” said he, as he moved aft for this purpose. “I am sure you will do all you intended,” replied she, as she rose from her seat. The artist took her hand to assist her to another seat. It was a delicate and prettily shaped hand, and Mr. Buckstone, in spite of the emergency of the moment, glanced at it with an artist’s eye. He was sufficiently enraptured by the touch to press the hand, if he had dared to do so; but he prudently refrained, and placed himself in the stern with the oar he had improvised. Mr. Buckstone, in the pursuit of his art, had accustomed himself to marine occupations. He succeeded in putting the boat’s head up to the wind, but that was about all he succeeded in doing, for the pine board twisted and behaved itself in a most unseamanlike manner; or Mr. Buckstone did, for the fault lay somewhere between them; and as far as the boatman or the lady could discover, no progress was made. Then he essayed to row the stubborn craft; but she whirled around, and resolutely went to seaward with the wind and tide. Miss Kingman hoped he would not wear himself out in fruitless exertions; but Mr. Buckstone seemed to have “enlisted for the war,” and to be determined to carry his point in spite of the obstinacy of the boat, the treachery of the oar, and the adverse influence of the wind and tide. Finally, after resorting to various expedients, he turned the craft towards the lighthouse on The Great Bell, so that her intended course was diagonal with the force of the breeze and the current, and pulled his oar on the seaward side. By this strategy, with the utmost exertion at the pine board, he realized that he was making a little progress through the water.