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 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.