with the tide, so there was nothing to do but to take it. Such was the
way of things. The Manxman could find his excuses. He was miserably
poor, he had bad masters, smuggling was his best occupation, his coasts
were indifferently lighted, ships came ashore of themselves--what was he
to do? That the name of Manxman did not become a curse, an execration,
and a reproach in these evil days of the Athols seems to say that
behind all this wicked work there were splendid virtues doing noble duty
somewhere. The real sap, the true human heart of Manxland, was somehow
kept alive. Besides cut-throats in ruffles, and wreckers in homespun,
there were true, sweet, simple-hearted people who would not sell their
souls to fill their mouths.

Does it surprise you that some of all this comes within the memory of
men still living? I am myself well within the period of middle life,
and, though too young to touch these evil days, I can remember men
and women who must have been in the thick of them. On the north of the
island is Kirk Maughold Head, a bold, rugged headland going far out into
the sea. Within this rocky foreland lie two bays, sweet coverlets of
blue waters, washing a shingly shore under shelter of dark cliffs. One
of these bays is called Port-y-Vullin, and just outside of it,
between the mainland and the head, is a rock, known as the Carrick, a
treacherous grey reef, visible at low water, and hidden at flood-tide.
On the low _brews_ of Port-y-Vullin stood two houses, the one a mill,
worked by the waters coming down from the near mountain of Barrule,
the other a weaver's cottage. Three weavers lived together there, all
bachelors, and all old, and never a woman or child among them--Jemmy of
eighty years, Danny of seventy, and Billy of sixty something. Year in,
year out, they worked at their looms, and early or late, whenever you
passed on the road behind, you heard the click of them. Fishermen coming
back to harbour late at night always looked for the light of their
windows. "Yander's Jemmy-Danny-Billy's," they would say, and steer home
by that landmark. But the light which guided the native seamen misled
the stranger, and many a ship in the old days was torn to pieces on the
jagged teeth of that sea-lion, the Carrick. Then, hearing loud human
cries above the shrieks of wind and wave, the three helpless old men
would come tottering down to the beach, like three innocent witches,
trembling and wailing, holding each other's hands lik