siderably longer, having (as the Elder afterwards put it) as many lines
in her as a patchwork quilt. Her ribs, rising above the unfinished
top-strakes, claimed ancestry in a dozen vessels of varying sizes; and how
the builder had contrived to fix them into one keelson passed all
understanding or guess. For over their unequal curves he had nailed a
sheath of packing-boards, eked out with patches of sheet-tin. Here and
there the eye, roaming over the structure, came to rest on a piece of
scarfing or dovetailing which must have cost hours of patient labour and
contrivance, cheek-by-jowl with work which would have disgraced a boy of
ten. The whole thing, stuck there and filling the small back-court, was a
nightmare of crazy carpentry, a lunacy in the sun's eye.

"Why, bless your heart!" said Tregenza, laying a hand on the boat's
transom with affectionate pride, "you must be the only man in Ardevora
that don't know about her. Scores of folk comes here, Sunday afternoons,
an' passes me compliments upon her." He passed a hand caressingly over
her stern board. "There's a piece o' timber for you! Inch-an'-a-quarter
teak, _an_' seasoned! That's where her name's to go--the _Pass By_.
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 _Pass 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 nobody 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 _Pass 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