this interview.

It was about this time that he returned to the Isle of Man, tired of
architecture. His uncle died, and there was no schoolmaster at Kirk
Maughold school. So Hall Caine became schoolmaster, and for about six
months kept a mixed school on the bleak headland. He is still
remembered as a schoolmaster, and last year, when "The Manxman" was
appearing in serial publication, his grown-up scholars used to gather
at a farm near Kirk Maughold school and listen to the schoolmaster
reading the story as each instalment came out.

The six months of his schoolmastership were a period of great
activity. It was the time of the Paris Commune, and, a rabid
Communist, Hall Caine read Communist and socialistic literature with
avidity. He contributed violent propagandist articles to "Mona's
Herald," in which three years previously he had preached the virtues
of conservatism, and attracted the attention of John Ruskin by his
eulogies of Ruskin's work with his recently founded Guild of St.
George. His leisure was spent in his workshop, and during this period
he not only carved a tombstone for his uncle's grave, but built a
house--Phoenix cottage--both of which are still standing and may be
seen. It was a happy time, a time of inspiration; and it may be, from
the sympathy between the man and the place, that Hall Caine would have
stayed on at Kirk Maughold had not a most imperative letter from
Richard Owens, which said that it was deplorable that he should be
throwing his life away in such occupations, recalled him to Liverpool.
To Liverpool accordingly he returned, to work as a draughtsman, and
fired withal with a double ambition--for one thing to win fame as a
poet, for another to succeed as a dramatist. Already in 1870 he had
written a long poem, which was published in 1874 anonymously by an
enterprising Liverpool publisher. About this poem George Gilfillan, to
whom Hall Caine sent it in 1876, wrote that there was much in it that
he admired, that it had the ring of genius, but that in parts it was
spoiled by affectations of language which could, however, be remedied.
Of the same poem, Rossetti, to whom it was also sent, wrote that it
contained passages of genius. As a dramatist, Hall Caine wrote, at
this period in his career, a play called "Alton Locke." founded on
Kingsley's story. It was shown to Rousby, the actor-manager, who liked
"the promise that it showed" and asked Hall Caine to write a play to
his order. At that tim