es, boy, yes; and the farmer men alwis keen for one in
Maughold, too. Ay, yes, keen, boy, keen; and if a man was after
building one here they'd be thinking diamonds of him."

"Then why hasn't somebody set up a mill before now, Davy?"

"Well, boy, ye see a Manxman is just the cleverest of all the people
goin' at takin' things aisy. Aw, clever at it, boy, clever!"

There is a full stream of water that tumbles into the sea over the
brows of Port-y-Vullin, after singing its way down from the heights
of Barrule. Jason had often marked it as he came and went from the
hut of Stephen Orry that contained his stuffed birds, and told
himself what a fine site it was for anybody that wanted to build a
water mill. He remembered it now with a freshened interest, and
bowling away to Mrs. Fairbrother at Lague for the purchase of a rod
of the land that lay between the road and the beach, to the Bailiff
for the right of water, and to old Coobragh for the hire of a cart to
fetch stones from the screes where the mountains quarried them, he
was soon in the thick of his enterprise.

He set the carpenter to work at his wheel, the smith at his axle, and
the mason at his stones, but for the walls and roof of the mill
itself he had no help but old Davy's. Early and late, from dawn to
dusk, he worked at his delving and walling, and when night fell in he
leaned over the hedge and smoked and measured out with his eye the
work he meant to do next day. When his skill did not keep pace with
his ardor he lay a day in bed thinking hard, and then got up and
worked yet harder. In less than two months he had his first
roof--timbers well and safely pitched, and if he went no farther it
was because the big hope wherewith his simple heart had been buoyed
up came down with a woeful crash.

"Aw, smart and quick, astonishin'," said old Davy of Jason to Mrs.
Fairbrother at Lague. "Aw 'deed, yes, and clever to, and steady
still. The way he works them walls is grand. I'll go bail the farming
men will be thinking diamonds of him when he makes a start."

"And then I wouldn't doubt but he'll be in the way of making a
fortune, too," said Mrs. Fairbrother.

"I wouldn' trust, I wouldn' trust," said Davy.

"And he'll be thinking of marrying, I suppose. Isn't he, Davy?" said
Mrs. Fairbrother.

"Marrying, is it?" said Davy; "aw, divil a marry, ma'am. The boy's
innocent. Aw, yes, innocent as a baby."

Mrs. Fairbrother had her own good reasons for thinking otherwis