The other addition of our force of a surety had stepped straight out of County Galway. It was true he wore a blue _matsoreo_ piped with red and most dandily worked upon the shoulders. It was true he wore the Lapp shoe, and the tight white-flannel Lapp trousers (all of them rather shabby), and carried sheath-knife and tar-bottle dangling from his embroidered belt. It is true he talked only barbarous Qfinsk, but he spoke it with the softest, most insinuating brogue imaginable. His whimsical, humorous face, with its two days' stubble of hair, was the most truly Irish piece of human furniture one ever put eyes upon.
He had a blue eye and a captivating grin--grin was the only word for it. He was always willing to do the larger share of the work, and--always did the least. He lied to one, and grinned without shame when he was found out. He tried brazenly and without the least concealment to swindle us over his wages, and grinned delightedly when we objected to paying him more than his just due. He provided us with free amusement the whole time we had him, and did it all deliberately. To have called such a delicious person anything else but Pat would have been an insult both to himself and to us.
We had a desperately hard journey of it on this march, and, moreover, passed nothing sufficiently interesting to note. The broad sleigh-cut continued all the way; the forest hedged it in on either side; the path underfoot was never level and seldom dry; and the insect plagues were a torment too horrible even to think back upon. In the end we came upon the swampy margin of a lake--the Menesjärvi we had heard so much about--and there, after some searching, found a canoe pulled up amongst the lake-side rushes.
Now the canoe was thoroughly sun-dried, and when put in the water she leaked after the manner of a basket. Moreover, she was small--unmistakably small. It was quite obvious to the naked eye that she would not hold the whole caravan, and equally obvious (when one looked at each member in turn) that no one wanted any more marching. However, for Pedr and Pat to walk farther was out of the question. They were both done to a turn, and fit to drop as it was. So they were put in the canoe with the baggage, and it just held the load, and Pat (wily man) annexed the baler, whilst Pedr took the paddles. They bestowed on us one ample grin, and one of the beautiful smiles, and pushed off.