uarrels, peacemaking,
shindies big and little, rumpus solemn and ridiculous, clouds of dust,
regal dust, political dust, and religious dust--you know the way of it.
But beneath it all and behind it all lies the real, true, living human
heart of Manxland. I want to show it to you, if you will allow me to
spare the needful time from facts and figures. It will get you close to
Man and its people, and it is not to be found in the history books.

ISLANDERS

And now, first, we Manxmen are islanders. It is not everybody who lives
on an island that is an islander. You know what I mean. I mean by an
islander one whose daily life is affected by the constant presence of
the sea. This is possible in a big island if it is far enough away from
the rest of the world, Iceland, for example, but it is inevitable in a
little one. The sea is always present with Manxmen. Everything they do,
everything they say, gets the colour and shimmer of the sea. The sea
goes into their bones, it comes out at their skin. Their talk is full of
it. They buy by it, they sell by it, they quarrel by it, they fight by
it, they swear by it, they pray by it. Of course they are not conscious
of this. Only their degenerate son, myself to wit, a chiel among them
takin' notes, knows how the sea exudes from the Manxmen. Say you ask if
the Governor is at home. If he is not, what is the answer? "He's not on
the island, sir." You inquire for the best hotel. "So-and-so is the
best hotel on the island, sir." You go to a Manx fair and hear a farmer
selling a cow. "Aw," says he, "she's a ter'ble gran' craythuer for
milkin', sir, and for butter maybe there isn' the lek of her on the
island, sir." Coming out of church you listen to the talk of two old
Manxwomen discussing the preacher. "Well, well, ma'am, well, well! Aw,
the voice at him! and the prayers! and the beautiful texes! There isn'
the lek of him on the island at all, at all!" Always the island, the
island, the island, or else the boats, and going out to the herrings.
The sea is always present. You feel it, you hear it, you see it, you can
never forget it. It dominates you. Manxmen are all sea-folk.

You will think this implies that Manxmen stick close to their island.
They do more than that. I will tell you a story. Five years ago I went
up into the mountains to seek an old Manx bard, last of a race of whom I
shall have something to tell you in their turn. All his life he had been
a poet. I did not gather that