Once afloat this would be easy enough, but he was sure that his own strength would be insufficient to launch her, and that he should need the aid of at least one man.

On returning to camp he called aside the sergeant of his company, James Grant, who was from his own estate in Nithsdale, and whom he knew to be a good swimmer.
"Sergeant," he said, "I want you to join me in an enterprise tonight.

I have found a boat hauled up under the bushes on the opposite shore, and we must bring her across.

I cannot make out her size; but from the look of her stern I should say she was a large boat.

You had better therefore borrow from the artillerymen one of their wooden levers, and get a stout pole two or three inches across, and cut half a dozen two foot lengths from it to put under her as rollers.