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 swashbuckler Duke, amused and silent, glancing down
the long lines of the strangest company with whom he had ever yet
been asked to sit at dinner. Suet pudding followed the broth, sheep's
head and potatoes followed the pudding, then six words of thanks and
all rose and trooped away except the Duke and Adam. That good man had
not altered the habit of his life by so much as a plate of cheese for
the fact that the "Lord of Mann" had sat at meat with him. "The
manners of a prince," thought the Duke.

They took the armchairs at opposite sides of the ingle.

"You look cosy in your retreat, Mr. Fairbrother," said the Duke; "but
since your days in Guinea have you never dreamt of a position of more
power, and perhaps of more profit?"

"As for power," answered Adam, "I have observed that the name and the
reality rarely go together."

"The experience of a statesman," thought the Duke.

"As for profit," he continued, "I have reflected that money has
never yet since the world began tempted a happy man."

"The wisdom of a judge," thought the Duke.

"And as for myself I am a completely happy one."

"With more than a judge's integrity," thought the Duke.

At that the Duke told the purpose of his visit.

"And now," he said, with uplifted hands, "don't say I've gone far to
fare worse. The post I offer requires but one qualification in the
man who fills it, yet no one about me possesses the simple gift. It
needs an honest man, and all the better if he's not a fool. Will you
take it?"

"No," said Adam, short and blunt.

"The very man," thought the Duke.

Six months later the Duke had his way. Adam Fairbrother, of
Lague, was made Governor of Mann (under the Duke himself as
Governor-General) at a salary of five hundred pounds a year.

On the night of Midsummer Day, 1793, the town of Ramsey held high
festival. The _Royal George_ had dropped anchor in the bay, and the
Prince of Wales, attended by the Duke of Athol, Captain Murray and
Captain Cook, had come ashore to set the foot of an English Prince
for the first time on Manx soil. Before dusk, the