e little children,
and never once dreaming of what bad work the candles over their looms
had done.

But there were those who were not so guileless. Among them was a sad old
salt, whom I shall call Hommy-Billy-mooar, Tommy, son of big Billy. Did
I know him, or do I only imagine him as I have heard of him? I cannot
say, but nevertheless I see him plainly. One of his eyes was gone, and
the other was badly damaged. His face was of stained mahogany, one side
of his mouth turned up, the other side turned down, he could laugh and
cry together. He was half landsman, tilling his own croft, half seaman,
going out with the boats to the herrings. In his youth he had sailed
on a smuggler, running in from Whitehaven with spirits. The joy of "the
trade," as they called smuggling, was that a man could buy spirits at
two shillings a gallon for sale on the island, and drink as much as he
"plazed abooard for nothin'." When Hommy married, he lived in a house
near the church, the venerable St. Maughold away on the headland, with
its lonely churchyard within sound of the sea.

There on tempestuous nights the old eagle looked out from his eyrie on
the doings of the sea, over the back of the cottage of the old weavers
to the Carrick. If anything came ashore he awakened his boys, scurried
over to the bay, seized all they could carry, stole back home, hid his
treasures in the thatch of the roof, or among the straw of the loft,
went off to bed, and rose in the morning with an innocent look, and
listened to the story of last night's doings with a face full of
surprise. They say that Hommy carried on this work for years, and though
many suspected, none detected him, not even his wife, who was a good
Methodist. The poor woman found him out at last, and, being troubled
with a conscience, she died, and Hommy buried her in Kirk Maughold
churchyard, and put a stone over her with a good inscription. Then he
went on as before. But one morning there was a mighty hue and cry. A
ship had been wrecked on the Carrick, and the crew who were saved had
seen some rascals carrying off in the darkness certain rolls of Irish
cloth which they had thrown overboard. Suspicion lit on Hommy and his
boys. Hommy was quite hurt. "Wrecking was it? Lord a-massy! To think,
to think!" Revenue officers were to come to-morrow to search his house.
Those rolls of Irish cloth were under the thatch, above the dry gorse
stored up on the "lath" in his cowhouse. That night he carried th