y." _Laa-bee_ is old Manx for bed, literally half-meat, a
profound commentary on the value of rest. The old salutation at the door
of a Manx cottage before the visitor entered was this word spoken
from the porch: _Vel peccaghs thie?_ Literally: Any sinner within? All
humanity being sinners in the common speech of the Manx people.

MANX PROVERBS

Nearly akin to the language of a race are its proverbs, and some of the
Manx proverbs are wise, witty, and racy of the soil. Many of them are
the common possession of all peoples. Of such kind is "There's many
a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." Here is one which sounds like an
Eastern saying: "Learning is fine clothes for the rich man, and riches
for the poor man." But I know of no foreign parentage for a proverb like
this: "A green hill when far away; bare, bare when it is near."

That may be Eastern also. It hints of a long weary desert; no grass,
no water, and then the cruel mirage that breaks down the heart of the
wayfarer at last. On the other hand, it is not out of harmony with
the landscape of Man, where the mountains look green sometimes from a
distance when they are really bare and stark, and so typify that waste
of heart when life is dry of the moisture of hope, and all the world is
as a parched wilderness. However, there is one proverb which is so Manx
in spirit that I could almost take oath on its paternity, so exactly
does it fit the religious temper of our people, though it contains a
word that must strike an English ear as irreverent: "When one poor man
helps another poor man, God himself laughs."

MANX BALLADS

Next to the proverbs of a race its songs are the best expression of its
spirit, and though Manx songs are few, some of them are full of Manx
character. Always their best part is the air. A man called Barrow
compiled the Manx tunes about the beginning of the century, but his book
is scarce. In my ignorance of musical science I can only tell you how
the little that is left of Manx music lives in the ear of a man who does
not know one note from another. Much of it is like a wail of the wind in
a lonely place near to the sea, sometimes like the soughing of the long
grass, sometimes like the rain whipping the panes of a window as
with rods. Nearly always long-drawn like a moan rarely various, never
martial, never inspiriting, often sad and plaintive, as of a people
kept under, but loving liberty, poor and low down, but with souls alive,
looking for so