as her share and interest; but Ballacraine
belonged to Jacob, and another provision would forthwith need to be
made for him. So after much arguing and some nagging across the
hearth of the kitchen at Lague it was decided that each of Jacob's
five brothers should mortgage his farm to one-sixth its value, and
that the gross sum of their five-sixths should be Jacob's for his
share. This arrangement would have the disadvantage of leaving Jacob
without land, but he showed a magnanimous spirit in that relation.
"Don't trouble about me," said he, "it's sweet and nice to do a
kindness to your own brothers."

And four of his brethren applauded that sentiment, but Thurstan
curled up his red nose and thought, "Aw, yes, of coorse, a powerful
big boiler of brotherly love the little miser keeps going under his
weskit."

And having so decided they further concluded to see the crops off the
ground, and then lose no time in carrying out their design. "Let's
wait for the melya," said Asher, meaning the harvest-home, "and then
off for Marky the Lord." The person who went by this name was one
Mark Skillicorn, an advocate, of Ramsey, who combined the functions
of pettifogger with those of money-lender and auctioneer. Marky the
Lord was old, and plausible and facetious. He was a distant relative
of the Fairbrothers by the side of their mother's French family; and
it was a strange chain of circumstances that no big farmer ever got
into trouble but he became a client of Marky the Lord's, that no
client of Marky the Lord's did not in the end go altogether to the
bad, and that poor Marky the Lord never had a client who did not die
in his debt. Nevertheless Marky the Lord grew richer as his losses
grew heavier, and more facetious as his years increased. Oh, he was a
funny dog, was Marky the Lord; but there was just one dog on the
island a shade or two funnier still, and that was Jacob Fairbrother.
This thrifty soul had for many a year kept a nest of private savings,
and even in the days when he and his brethren went down to make a
poor mouth before their father at Castletown he had money secretly
lent out on the conscientious interest of only three per cent. above
the legal rate.

And thus it chanced that when Ballacraine was advertised in big
letters on every barn door in the north of Mann, Jacob Fairbrother
went down to Marky the Lord, and made a private bargain to buy it in
again. So when the day of the sale came, and Marky the Lord strode