intercommunication the most insatiable. And you are up on the
mountain-side at the farther limit of plough-range, and the wind
whistles just the right sort of accompaniment to such talk.

I think I must have a sail here. But, do you know? the Manx seamen and
fishermen tend to become self-conscious: the "strangers" are spoiling
them. Not so the farmer; of course no one can make him understand that
the visitors do him any good by raising the prices of his produce, so he
cares very little about them, and in no way guides himself according to
them or their fashions. So far as the outer world comes to him, it is by
the channel of the newspapers. He has all the boundless curiosity, the
thirst for knowledge miscellaneous, pulpy, and piquant, which
characterise those that dwell remote. When he gets hold of you he flies
at you, hugs you, gets every blessed thing he can out of you.
"Favourable specimen," you will say. That is true; but, as regards the
independence and primitive state of mind, what I say applies to almost
all. You see, you must get down beneath the gentleman or would-be
gentleman-farmer, down to the man who never conceived the idea of
ruffling it with gentlefolk. Also, you must not go down to the mere
labourer. But they are desperate gossips--gossips not so much in matters
local and insular, as in matters universal. The gossiping tone does
proceed into the universal, does it not? The hilarity with which they
will range the far horizons of thought is so childlike (you know how
children are about that); a chatter that sparkles on the surface like
their own _divers_, and then, with an "Aw bless me sowl," or "Aye, man,
aye," down into the deepest soundings of the spirit....

* * * * *

A charming Hibernian called on me the other day. Portentous! alarming!