Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/40

 "As for profit," he continued, "I have reflected that money has never yet since the world began tempted a happy man."

"The wisdom of a judge," thought the Duke.

"And as for myself, I am a completely happy one."

"With more than a judge's integrity," thought the Duke.

At that the Duke told the purpose of his visit.

"And no," he said, with uplifted hands, "don't say I have gone far to fare worse. The post I offer requires but one qualification in the man who fills it, yet no one about me possesses the simple gift. It needs an honest man, and all the better if he's not a fool. Will you take it?"

"No," said Adam, short and blunt.

"The very man," thought the Duke.

Six months later the Duke had his way. Adam Fairbrother, of Lague, was made Deputy-Governor of Man (under the Duke himself as Governor-General) at a salary of five hundred pounds a year.

On the night of Midsummer Day, 17—, the town of Ramsey held high festival. The had dropped anchor in the bay, and the Prince of Wales, attended by the Duke of Athol, Captain Murray, and Captain Cook, had come ashore to set the foot of an English Prince for the first time on Manx soil. Before dusk the Royal ship had weighed anchor again, but when night fell in the festivities had only begun. Guns were fired, bands of music passed through the town, and bonfires were lighted on the top of the Sky Hill. The kitchens of the inns were crowded, and the streets were thronged with country people enveloped in dust. In the market-place the girls were romping, the young men drinking, the children shouting at the top of their voices, the pedlars edging their barrows through the crowd and crying their wares. And over all the tumult of exuberant voices, the shouting, the laughter, the merry shrieks, the gay banter, the barking of sheep-dogs, the snarling of mongrel setters, the streaming and smoking of hawkers' torches across a thousand faces, there was the steady peal of the bell of Ballure.

In the midst of it all a strange man passed through the town. He was of colossal stature—stalwart, straight, and flaxen-haired, wearing a goat-skin cap without brim, a grey woollen shirt open at the neck and belted with a leathern strap, breeches of untanned leather, long thick stockings, a second pair up to his ankles, and no shoes on his feet. His face was pale, his cheek-bones stood high, and his eyes were like the