CHAPTER XI.
Mona--long hid from those who roam the main.
-- COLLINS.
The Isle of Man, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was very different, as a place of residence, from what it is now.

Men had not then discovered its merit as a place of occasional refuge from the storms of life, and the society to be there met with was of a very uniform tenor.

There were no smart fellows, whom fortune had tumbled from the seat of their barouches--no plucked pigeons or winged rooks--no disappointed speculators--no ruined miners--in short, no one worth talking to.

The society of the island was limited to the natives themselves, and a few merchants, who lived by contraband trade.

The amusements were rare and monotonous, and the mercurial young Earl was soon heartily tired of his dominions.