From such a quickening of industrial activity through the length and breadth of the nation, quite independently of the improvements in printing, or rather of the dissemination of books, in engraving and in etching, it is obvious that time no longer necessarily hung heavy on the hands of country gentlemen. The wits of the domestic “ffoole” were no longer so indispensable now that the lord of the manor had material upon which to exercise his own. If, _faute de mieux_, he had hitherto bestowed all his time on his hawk and his hound, the pleasures of the table, and a vast amount of sleep, he was no longer forced to confine himself to these pastimes. “To divert at any time a troublesome fancy,” says worthy Master Fuller, “run to thy books. They presently fix thee to them, and drive the other out of thy thoughts. They always receive thee with the same kindness.” With many other noblemen and gentlemen of that time, the Earl of Derby fell in with this sound advice. “His life,” says Walpole,[9] “was one of virtue, accomplishments, and humanity.” Neither firebrand, busybody, nor time-server—too high of rank to desire to be higher—James, seventh Earl of Derby, nearing on to middle life at the time of his father’s death, lived chiefly on his own estates, and these preferably at Lathom House. He appeared rarely at Court, finding full occupation in the affairs of his own estate, of which the kingdom of Man formed an important and seemingly difficult part to manage. “But,” says one of his biographers, “peaceful years and charitable acts fill few pages in history; and Lord Derby owes his place there, not to virtues arising from his own choice and goodwill, but to those which were struck from him by the blows of fortune, as fire is struck from flint stones.” Footnote 9: _Noble Authors._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII MANX LAND. THE SON OF LEIR. ST. PATRICK. PREHISTORIC MAN. KING ORRY AND HIS HIGH-ROAD. THE HOUSE OF KEYS. PUBLIC PENANCE IN MANX LAND. A FORTUNATE FILE. BREAST LAWS AND DEEMSTERS. THE LITTLE PEOPLE. A HAUNTED CASTLE. A THOROUGH BAD DOG. CATS’ TAILS. “A SHIP IN HER RUFF.” A CONTESTED PRIZE. THE THREE LEGS. THE LORD OF MAN Of the Isle of Man, one chronicler tells us that its early history is “more than ordinarily obscured in the mists of the past;” another, that “the Isle of Man is almost the only place where there is any chance of seeing a fairy;” a third, that “nowhere in the same area are there so many relics of an unknown past.” The fact that the island owns no ancient literature, its laws being unwritten, and that it maintained scarcely any intercourse with other nations, renders it impossible to disentangle from myth and tradition any authentic chronicle of the little dominion which at a later period was to come under the rule of the Stanleys.