Hall Caine (1853- ): The Manxman.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF HALL CAINE'S MANUSCRIPT, FROM "THE MANXMAN."

[Illustration: GREEBA CASTLE, ISLE OF MAN, WHERE MR. CAINE WROTE MOST OF "THE MANXMAN.

WHERE MR. CAINE FINISHED "THE MANXMAN."

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.

[Illustration: KIRK MAUGHOLD, WHICH FIGURES IN "THE BONDMAN" AND "THE MANXMAN.

[Illustration: LEZAYRE CHURCH, WHERE PETE AND KATE WERE MARRIED IN "THE MANXMAN.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF "THE COTTAGE BY THE WATER-TROUGH," KIRKNEO, NEAR RAMSEY, ISLE OF MAN, WHERE LIVED "BLACK TOM," THE GRANDFATHER OF PETE, IN "THE MANXMAN.

[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL OF KATE IN "THE MANXMAN.

" THE WRITING OF "THE MANXMAN.

For the first six months he lived at Greeba Castle, a very pretty but very lonely house, about half-way between Peel and Douglas, on the Douglas roadand it was there that most of "The Manxman" was written.

"I turned my Jewish story into a Manx story, and 'The Jew' became 'The Manxman.'

" Hall Caine, in speaking of the genesis of "The Manxman," may be induced to show his little pocket-diary for 1893.

" "The Manxman" was finished at the house in Marine Parade in Peel where Hall Caine is now temporarily residinga large brick house, which was built for a boarding-house and is certainly not the house for an artist.

In June and July of 1894, whilst in London, Hall Caine wrote a dramatic version of "The Manxman" and offered it to Tree, who, however, refused it, as unlikely to appeal to the sympathies of the fashionable audiences of the Haymarket Theatre.

'The Manxman' is the story of David and Uriah.

Thus Sir John Rhys was informed by a Manxman that an Irish cattle-dealer of his acquaintance used to drive his cattle through fire on May Day so as to singe them a little, since he believed that it would preserve them from harm.

When the Manxman was asked where the dealer came from, he answered, "From the mountains over there," pointing to the Mourne Mountains then looming faintly in the mists on the western horizon.[390]

But Manxmen burn beasts when they are dead as well as when they are alive; and their reasons for burning the dead animals may help us to understand their reasons for burning the living animals.

This uncouth device is not an invention of the Manxmen, for it is found on some very ancient coins,Greek, I believe; but at any rate it is now the device of our subject Island of Man, and, like that set in motion, and nothing else, was the object that approached me, only it had a head where the three legs were joined, and a voice came out of the head to this effect, 'Oh missis, you hab to take me out of dis here bird field, me