whose name I bear, Chaise shocked all the proprieties by
announcing his intention of walking in front of the funeral procession
through the streets and singing his terrible hymns. He would yield to
no persuasion, no appeals, and no threats. He had promised the dead man
that he would do this, and he would not break his oath to save his life.
It was agony to the mourners, but they had to submit. Chaise fulfilled
his vow, walked ten yards in front, sang his fierce music with the tears
streaming from his wild eyes down his quivering face. But the spectacle
let loose no unseemly mirth. Nobody laughed, and surely if the heaven
that Chaise feared was listening and looking down, his crazy voice was
not the last to pierce the dome of it. My friend the Rev. T. E. Brown
has written a touching and beautiful poem, "To Chaise in Heaven":

So you are gone, dear Chaise!
Ah well; it was enough--
The ways were cold, the ways were rough,
O Heaven! O home!
No more to roam,
Chaise, poor Chaise!
And now it's all so plain, dear Chaise!
So plain--
The 'wildered brain,
The joy, the pain
The phantom shapes that haunted,
The half-born thoughts that daunted:
All, all is plain,
Dear Chaise!
All is plain.

*****

Ah now, dear Chaise! of all the radiant host,
Who loves you most?
I think I know him, kneeling on his knees;
Is it Saint Francis of Assise?
Chaise, poor Chaise.

MANX CHARACTERISTICS

I have rambled on too long about my eccentric Manx characters, and left
myself little space for a summary of the soberer Manx characteristics.
These are independence, modesty, a degree of sloth, a non-sanguine
temperament, pride, and some covetousness. This uncanny combination of
characteristics is perhaps due to our mixed Celtic and Norse blood. Our
independence is pure Norse. I have never met the like of it, except in
Norway, where a Bergen policeman who had hunted all the morning for my
lost umbrella would not take anything for his pains; and in Iceland,
where a poor old woman in a ragged woollen dress, a torn hufa on her
head, torn skin shoes on her feet, and with rheumatism playing visible
havoc all over her body, refused a kroner with the dignity, grave look,
stiffened lips, and proud head that would have become a duchess. But the
Manxman's independence almost reaches a vice. He is so unwilling to owe
anything