r that it told the story of the Crucifixion in startling
language, full of realism that must have been horribly ghastly, if it
had not been so comic. At the end of each verse the singers made one
stride towards the communion. There were some thirty verses, and every
mortal verse did these zealous carollers give us. They came to an end at
length, and then another old fellow rose in his pew and sang a ditty
in Manx. It told of the loss of the herring-fleet in Douglas Bay in the
last century. After that there was yet another and another carol--some
that might be called sacred, others that would not be badly wronged with
the name of profane. As I recall them now, they were full of a burning
earnestness, and pictured the dangers of the sinner and the punishment
of the damned. They said nothing about the joys of heaven, or the
pleasures of life. Wherever these old songs came from they must have
dated from some period of religious revival. The Manxman may have
appropriated them, but if he did so he was in a deadly earnest mood. It
must have been like stealing a hat-band.

My comrade had been silent all this time, but in response to various
winks, nods, and nudges, he rose to his feet. Now, in prospect of Oiel
Verree I had written the old man a brand new carol. It was a mighty
achievement in the sentimental vein. I can remember only one of its
couplets:

Hold your souls in still communion,
Blend them in a holy union.

I am not very sure what this may mean, and Billy must have been in the
same uncertainty. Shall I ever forget what happened? Billy standing in
the pew with my paper in his hand the wrong way up. Myself by his side
holding a candle to him. Then he began to sing. It was an awful tune--I
think he called it sevens--but he made common-sense of my doggerel by
one alarming emendation. When he came to the couplet I have given you,
what do you think he sang?

"Hold your souls in still communion,
Blend them in--a hollow onion!"

Billy must have been a humorist. He is long dead, poor old Billy. God
rest him!

DECAY OF THE MANX LANGUAGE

If in this unscientific way I have conveyed my idea of Manx carvals,
Manx ballads, or Manx proverbs, you will not be surprised to hear me say
that I do not think that any of these, can live long apart from the Manx
language. We may have stolen most of them; they may have been wrecked on
our coast, and we may have smuggled them; but as long as they wear our
nativ