l in Ho

and one of the least of them was the Scottish nobleman who sold it for gold in 1765. After that act of truck and trade the English crown held the right of appointing the Governor-General. It chose the son of the Scottish nobleman. This was John, fourth Duke of Athol, and he held his office fifty-five bad years. In his day the

ither; he might have had any of the twenty-four Keys, but he selected none. It was then that he heard of a plain farmer in the north of the island, who was honored for hi

outh he had run away to sea, been taken prisoner by the Algerines, kept twenty-eight months a slave in Barbary, had escaped and returned home captain of a Guineaman. Th

the Duke rode up to it Adam himself was ringing the bell above the door lintel that summoned his people to dinner. He was then in middle life, stout, y

ngel in homespun,

farming people were trooping in, bringing with them the odor of fresh peat and soil. Bowls of barley broth were being set in front of the big chair at the table end. Adam sat in this seat and motioned the Duke to the bench at his right. The Duke sat down. Then six words of grace and all were in their places-Adam himself, his wife, a shrewd-faced body, his six sons, big and shambling, his men, bare-armed and quiet, his maids, with skirts tucked up, plump and noisy, and the swashbuckle

hairs at opposite

Duke; "but since your days in Guinea have you never dream

I have observed that the name an

of a statesman,"

reflected that money has never yet sinc

a judge," tho

lf I am a comple

judge's integrity,

e told the purp

fer requires but one qualification in the man who fills it, yet no one about me possesses the

Adam, short

an," though

Lague, was made Governor of Mann (under the Duke himself as

fell in the festivities had only begun. Guns were fired, bands of music passed through the town, and bonfires were lighted on the top of the Sky Hill. The kitchens of the inns were crowded, and the streets were thronged with country people enveloped in dust. In the market place the girls were romping, the young men drinking, the children shouting at the top of their

n at the neck and belted with a leathern strap, breeches of untanned leather, long thick stockings, a second pair up to his ankles, and no shoes on his feet. His face was pale, his cheek bo

ugh Tavern, and there he stopped again, paused a moment, and then stepped in. After a time the children who had followed at his heels sepa

or Manx. Had anyone seen him? Yes, everyone. He had gone into the Plough. To the Plough the blue-jackets made their way. The good woman who kept it, Mother Beatty, had certainly seen such a man. "Aw, yes, the poor craythur, he came, so he did," but never a word could he speak to her, and never a word could she speak to him, so she gave him

door and looked out. At the next instant the

ered, and pointed to

f her finger in the darkness, d

oke and the roar of cannon. To his right were the bonfires on the hilltop, with little dark figures passing before them, and a glow above them embracing a third of the sky. In front of him

e door was shut, and no one answered when he knocked. At length, by the turn of a byroad, he saw a light thr

was sitting alone by the hearth, with the glow of a gentle fire on his f

darkness, looking into the quiet ro

of the Sky Hill, talking as he went, answering many questions and asking not a few, naming the mountains, running through the island's history, explaining the three legs of its coat of arms, glancing at its ancient customs and giving a taste of its language. He had been simple, sincere, and natural from first to last, and when the time had come for the Prince to re

Fairbrother had silently slipped away. He lived at Government House, but had left his three elder boys at Lague, and thought this a happy chance of spending a night at home. Only his sons' housekeeper, a spinster aunt of his own, was there, an

before he knew the language of his masters to obey it quickly, of the fetters on his hands, the weights on his legs, the collar about his neck, of the raw flesh where the iron had torn the skin; and then of the

Duke, the guns, the music, the bonfires, were gone; bit by bit he pieced together the life he had lived in his you

ut he saw a man's haggard face peering in at him from the darkne

n," he

an en

impulse stepped quietly forward, pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and held out his arm. Around his wrist there

been in

oned the man to a seat. Some inarticulat

igner. What w

the top of a corner cupboard. Adam pointed t

aman. Of wh

?" asked t

shook

n? Nor

," said

an Ic

f a woman in the early bloom of womanhood-Adam's young wife and firs

d no

seemed about to assent, and then, with the look of one who

ife. What w

, and Mar: his wife, was born August the 11th, 1753, about 5 o'clock in the morning, half flood, wind at southwest, and christened August 18th." To this he pointed, then to himself, and finally to the str

reaking out in beads over his face. Having eaten, he grew drowsy, fell to nodding where he sat, and in a moment of rec

loft. There the man stretched himself on the straw, and

s presence, sat with his face to the fire and smoked, dozed, dreamt or thought, and left his people to gossip on. What chance had brought the poor man to his door that night? An Icelander, dumb for all uses of speech, who had lain in the chains of

the blue-jackets who were in pursuit of him. He had stolen something. No, he had murdered somebody. Anyway there was a warrant for

s boys answered him that he was a foreigneering sort of a man in a ski

Four men entered. They were the blue-jackets. The foreign seaman that they were in searc

the Governor and repeated the question. But the good Adam had twisted back to the fire

is asleep," said

d been talking as they entered. "Fat

d, told his story again, and the good Adam seemed to struggle hard in the effort t

s ship, your

else-no

our Excellency.

id the G

luded that somewhere thereabouts the man must surely be, and decided to sleep the night in the stable loft, that they might scour the cou

front of the window. Adam pointed, and the man looked in. The four blue-jackets were lying on the benches drawn round the fire, and the dull glow of the slumbering peat was on their faces. They were asleep. At that

eadfastly, and in the light of the lantern their wild gla

ace vacant, and on the hilltops the fires had smouldered down. By daybreak next morning the blue

damp, boggy and ruinous, a ditch where the tenant is allowed to sit rent free. The sun stood high when a woman, coming out of this place, found a man sleeping in a broken-ribbed boat that lay side down on the be

ut, the trollop, the trull, the

was Step