“Fellow-townsmen,” said Philip--his voice swung like a quivering bell over a sea,--“you can never know how much your welcome has moved me. I cannot say whether in my heart of hearts I am more proud of it or more ashamed. To be ashamed of it altogether would dishonour _you_, and to be too proud of it would dishonour _me_, I am not worthy of your faith and good-fellowship. Ah!”--he raised his hand to check a murmur of dissent (the crowd was now hushed from end to end)--“let me utter the thought of all. In honouring me you are thinking of others also ['No,' 'Yes'); you are thinking of my people--above all, of one who was laid under the willows yonder, a wrecked, a broken, a disappointed man--my father, God rest him! I will not conceal it from you--his memory has been my guide, his failures have been my lightship, his hopes my beacon, his love my star. For good or for evil, my anchor has been in the depths of his grave. God forbid that I should have lived too long under the grasp of a dead hand. It was my aim to regain what he had lost, and this day has witnessed its partial reclamation. God grant I may not have paid too dear for such success.” There were cries of “No, sir, no.” He smiled faintly and shook his head. “Fellow-countrymen, you believe I am worthy of the name I bear. There is one among you, an old comrade, a tried and trusted friend, whose faith would be a spur if it were not a reproach----” His voice was breaking, but still it pealed over the sea of heads. “Well, I will try to do my duty--from this hour onwards you shall see me try. Fellow-Manxmen, you will help me for the honour of the place I fill, for the sake of our little island, and--yes, and for my own sake also, I know you will--to be a good man and an upright judge. But”--he faltered, his voice could barely support itself--“but if it should ever appear that your confidence has been misplaced--if in the time to come I should seem to be unworthy of this honour, untrue to the oath I took to-day to do God's justice between man and man, a wrongdoer, not a righter of the wronged, a whited sepulchre where you looked for a tower of refuge--remember, I pray of you, my countrymen, remember, much as you may be suffering then, there will be one who will be suffering more--that one will be myself.” The general impression that night was that the Deemster's speech had not been a proper one. Breaking up with some damp efforts at the earlier enthusiasm, the people complained that they were like men who had come for a jig and were sent home in a wet blanket. There should have been a joke or two, a hearty word of congratulation, a little natural glorification of Ramsey, and a quiet slap at Douglas and Peel and Castletown, a few fireworks, a rip-rap or two, and some general illumination. “But sakes alive! the solemn the young Dempster was! And the melancholy! And the mystarious!”