The Manxman

ooked for admiration. She was vain, and could not bear misfortune; and she had no deep well of love from which to drink when the fount of her pride ran dry. If her husband had indulged her with a little pity, everything might have gone along more easily. But he had only loved her and been ashamed. And now that he lay near to his death, the love began to ebb and the shame to deepen into dread.

He slept little at night, and as often as he closed his eyes certain voices of mocking and reproach seemed to be constantly humming in his ears.

"Your son!" they would cry. "What is to become of him? Your dreams! Your great dreams! Deemster! Ballawhaine! God knows what! You are leaving the boy; who is to bring him up? His mother? Think of it!"

At last a ray of pale sunshine broke on the sleepless wrestler with the night, and he became almost happy. "I'll speak to the boy," he thought. "I will tell him my own history, concealing nothing. Yes, I will tell him of my own father also, God rest him, the st