6o ALONGSHORE i 



little doing to her. It would be hard to argue 

 with him that she was not the best, once. He 

 knows. He used her for forty years, and he 

 threatens to fit her out for sea again. Whether 

 or no she is the oldest of all the old boats, and 

 what her name originally was, nobody seems sure. 

 The Rover she is called, on account of his having 

 roved in her so far and so often, day and night, 

 east and west under the cliffs, in search of the 

 many things which can be found there by one 

 to whom the rocks are as familiar as his native 

 streets and alleys. Of late years she has also 

 been nicknamed the Fearnatight, because she will 

 never go to sea again and therefore has naught 

 to fear. Her stern Is stove In, and daylight can 

 be seen between her strakes. Her sail is rotten, 

 her cordage gone, her oars broken, her mast split. 

 Her paint, once white, is the colour of a dirty 

 sky in thick weather. Everything loose In her — 

 bottom-boards, stern-seats, the step even — was 

 long since stolen for firewood. Blades of grass 

 spring up along her keel. But In Benjie's eyes, 

 in his memory rather, she Is still seaworthy. One 

 of us once said, in chaff, when we were standing 

 by ready to haul her up-over the sea-wall, 'Why 

 don' 'ee bring out thy sledge, Benjie, or just let 



