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One noonday–a few minutes after the children had been dismissed from school–he walked out into the yard, in the unconfessed hope of finding Lizzie there: and there she was, engaged in filling her apron with wood.

“Listen to me,” he said–for the two by this time had, without parley, grown into allies. “Your grandfather’ll get along all right till he’ve finished buildin’. But what’s to happen when the boat’s ready to launch? Have you ever thought ‘pon that?”

“Often an’ often,” said Lizzie.

“If ‘twould even float–which I doubt–” said the Elder–“the dratted thing couldn’ be got down to the water, without pullin’ down seven feet o’ wall an’ the butt-end of Ugnot’s pigsty.”

“We must lengthen out the time,” said the practical child. “Please God, he’ll die afore it’s finished.”

“You mustn’ talk irreligious,” said her elderly friend. “Besides, there’s nothin’ amiss with him, settin’ aside his foolishness. I’ve a-thought sometimes, now, o’ buildin’ a boat down here, an’, when the time came, makin’ believe to exchange. Boat-buildin’ is slack just now, but I might trust to tradin’ her off on someone–when he’d done with her–which in the natur’ of things can’t be long. I’ve a model o’ the old Pass By hangin’ up somewhere in the passage behind the shop. We might run her up in two months, fit to launch, an’ finish her at leisure, call her the Pass By, and I daresay the Lord’ll send along a purchaser in good time.”

Lizzie shook her head. She would have liked to call Mr. Penno the best man in the world; but luckily–for it would have been an untruth–she found herself unequal to it.

V.

Their apprehensions were vain. The whole town had entered into the fun of Tregenza’s boat, and she was no sooner felt to be within measureable distance of completion than committees–composed at first of the younger fishermen (but, by and by, the elders joined shamefacedly), held informal meetings, and devised a royal launch for her. What though she could not, as Mr. Penno had foreseen, be extricated from the yard but at the expense of seven feet of wall and the butt-end of Ugnot’s pigsty? Half a dozen young masons undertook to pull the wall down and rebuild it twice as strong as before; and the landlord of Ugnot’s, being interviewed, declared that he had been exercised in mind for thirty years over the propinquity of the pigsty and the dwelling-house, and would readily accept thirty shillings compensation for all damage likely to be done.

Report of these preparations at length reached Elder Penno’s ears, and surprised him considerably. He sent for the ringleaders and remonstrated with them.

“I’ve no cause to be friends with Tregenza, the Lord knows,” he said. “Still, the man’s ailin’ and weak in his mind. Such a shock as you’re makin’ ready to give ‘en, as like as not may land the fellow in his grave.”

“Land ‘en in his grave?” they answered. “Why the old fool knows the whole programme! He’ve a-sent down to the Ship Inn to buy a bottle o’ wine for the christenin’ an’ looks forward to enjoyin’ hisself amazin’.”

The Elder went straight to Tregenza, and found this to be no more than the truth.

“And here have I been lyin’ awake thinkin’ how to spare your feelin’s!” he protested.

“‘Tis a very funny thing,” answered Tregenza, “that you, who in the way o’ money make it your business to know every man’s affairs in Ardevora, should be the last to get wind of a little innercent merrymakin’. That’s your riches, again.”

After this one must allow that it was handsome of the Elder to summon the committee again and point out to them the uncertainty of the Pass By‘s floating when they got her down to the water. Had they considered this? They had not. So he offered them five hundredweight of lead to ballast and trim her; more, if it should be needed; and suggested their laying down moorings for her, well on the outer side of the harbour, where from his garden the old man would have a good sight of her. He would, if the committee approved, provide the moorings gratis.

On the day of the launch Ardevora dressed itself in all its bunting. A crowd of three hundred assembled in and around Tregenza’s backyard and lined the adjacent walls to witness the ceremony and hear the speeches; but Elder Penno was neither a speech-maker nor a spectator. He could not, for nervousness, leave the quay, where he stood ready beside a cauldron of bubbling tar and a pile of lead pegs, to pay the ship over before she took the water, and trim her as soon as ever she floated. But when, amid cheers and to the strains of the Temperance Brass Band, she lay moored at length upon a fairly even keel, with the red ensign drooping from a staff over her stern, he climbed the hill to find Tregenza contemplating her with pride through the gap in his ruined wall.

“I missed ‘ee at the christ’nin’,” said the old man. “But it went off very well. Lev’ us go into the house an’ touch pipe.”

“It surprises me,” said the Elder, “to find you so cheerful as you be. An occupation like this goin’ out o’ your life–I reckoned you might feel it, a’most like the loss of a limb.”

“A man o’ my age ought to wean hisself from things earthly,” said the old man; “an’ besides, I’ve a-got you.”

“Hey?”

“Henceforth I’ve a-got you, an’ all to yourself.”

“Seems a funny thing,” mused the Elder; “an’ you at this moment owin’ me no less than seventy-five pound!”

Sam Tregenza settled himself down in his chair and nodded as he lit pipe. “Nothin’ like friendship, after all,” he said. “Now you’re talkin’ comfortable!”

[1] Playing truant.