after
ten years' absence.

Davy came by the Sneafell from Liverpool. It was August--the height of
the visiting season--and the deck of the steamer was full of tourists.
Davy walked through the cobweb of feet and outstretched legs with the
face of a man who thought he ought to speak to everybody. Fifty times in
the first three hours he went forward to peer through the wind and
the glaring sunshine for the first glimpse of the Isle of Man. When at
length he saw it, like a gray bird lying on the waters far away, with
the sun's light tipping the hill-tops like a feathery crest, he felt so
thick about the throat that he took six steerage passengers to the bar
below to help him to get rid of his hoarseness. There was a brass band
aboard, and during the trip they played all the outlandish airs of
Germany, but just as the pacquet steamed into Douglas Bay, and Davy
was watching the land and remembering everything upon it, and shouting
"That's Castle Mona!" "There's Fort Ann!" "Yonder's ould St. Mathews's!"
they struck up "Home, Sweet Home." That was too much for Davy. He
dived into his breeches' pockets, gave every German of the troupe five
shillings apiece, and then sat down on a coil of rope and blubbered
aloud like a baby.

Kinvig had sent a grand landau from Ramsey to fetch Capt'n Davy to
Ballaugh; but before the English driver from the Mitre had identified
his fare Davy had recognized an old crony, with a high, springless,
country cart--Billiam Ballaneddan, who had come to Douglas to dispatch a
barrel of salted herrings to his married daughter at Liverpool, and was
going back immediately. So Davy tumbled his boxes and bags and other
belongings into the landau, piling them mountains high on the cushioned
seats, and clambered into the cart himself. Then they set off at a race
which should be home first--the cart or the carriage, the luggage or the
owner of it; the English driver on his box seat with his tall hat and
starchy cravat, or Billiam twidling his rope reins, and Davy on the
plank seat beside him, bobbing and bumping, and rattling over the
stones like a parched pea on a frying pan.

That was a tremendous drive for Davy. He shouted when he recognized
anything, and as he recognized everything he shouted throughout the
drive. They took the road by old Braddan Church and Union Mills, past
St. John's, under the Tynwald Hill, and down Creg Willie's Hill. As he
approached Kirk Michael his excitement was intense. He was ne