Merry-Garden and Other Stories Part 22

No; I couldn't fancy any other name."

The Elder was dumb. He understood now, and pitied the man, who nevertheless (he told himself) deserved his affliction.

"No, I couldn' fancy any other name," went on Tregenza in a musing tone.

"If the Lord has a grievance agen me for settin' too much o' my heart on the old _Pa.s.s By_, He've a-took out o' me all the satisfaction He's likely to get. 'Tisn' like the man that built a new Jericho an' set up the foundations thereof 'pon his first-born an' the gates 'pon his youngest.

The cases don't tally; for my son an' gran'son went down together in th'

old boat, an' _I_ got n.o.body left."

"There's your gran'daughter," the Elder suggested.

"Liz?" Tregenza shook his head. "I reckon she don't count."

"She'll count enough to get sent to gaol," said the Elder tartly, "if you encourage her to be a thief. And look here, Sam Tregenza, it seems to me you've very loose notions o' what punishment means, an' why 'tis sent. The Lord takes away the _Pa.s.s By_, an' your son an' gran'son along with her, an' why? (says you). Because (says you) your heart was too much set 'pon the boat. Now to my thinkin' you was a deal likelier punished because you'd forgot your duty to your neighbour an' neglected to pay up the insurance."

Tregenza shook his head again, slowly but positively. "'Tis curious to me," he said, "how you keep harkin' back to that bit o' money you lost.

But 'tis the same, I've heard, with all you rich fellows. Money's the be-all and end-all with 'ee."

The Elder at this point fairly stamped with rage; but before he could muster up speech the street-door opened and the child Lizzie slipped into the kitchen. Slight noise though she made, her grandfather caught the sound of her footsteps. A look of greed crept into his face, as he made hurriedly for the back-doorway.

"Liz!" he called.

"Yes, gran'fer."

"Where've yer been?"

"Been to school."

"Brought any wood?"

"How could I bring any wood when--" Her voice died away as she caught sight of the Elder following her grandfather into the kitchen; and in a flash, glancing from her to Tregenza, the Elder read the truth--that the child was habitually beaten if she failed to bring home timber for the boat.

She stood silent, at bay, eyeing him desperately.

"Look here," said the Elder, and caught himself wondering at the sound of his own voice; "if 'tis wood you want, let her come and ask for it.

I'm not sayin' but she can fetch away an armful now an' then--in reason, you know."

IV.

The longer Elder Penno thought it over, the more he confessed himself puzzled, not with Tregenza, but with his own conduct.

Tregenza was mad, and madness would account for anything.

But why should he, Elder Penno, be moved to take a sudden interest, unnecessary as it was inquisitive, in this mad old man, who had fooled him out of seventy-five pounds?

Yet so it was. The Elder came again, two days later, and once again before the end of the week. By the end of the second week the visit had become a daily one. What is more, day by day he found himself looking forward to it.

That Tregenza also looked forward to it might be read in the invariable eagerness of his welcome; and this was even harder to explain, because the Elder never failed to harp--seldom, indeed, relaxed harping--on old misdeeds and the lost insurance money. Nay, perhaps in scorn of his own weakness, he insisted on this more and more offensively; rehearsing each day, as he climbed the hill, speeches calculated to offend or hurt.

But in the intervals he would betray--as he could not help feeling--some curiosity in the boat.

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 ap.r.o.n 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 b.u.t.t-end of Ugnot's pigsty."

"We must lengthen out the time," said the practical child. "Please G.o.d, 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 _Pa.s.s By_ hangin'

up somewhere in the pa.s.sage behind the shop. We might run her up in two months, fit to launch, an' finish her at leisure, call her the _Pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.t-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 s.h.i.+llings 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 s.h.i.+p 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 _Pa.s.s 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 a.s.sembled 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 s.h.i.+p 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 Bra.s.s 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_."