he could find to form part of the
crew; the remainder could be obtained at Waterford.

Captain Tracy was setting off one morning, resolved to make the final
arrangements with his lawyer for the disposal of his property, when just
as he left his house he was accosted by a man, whose ragged dress,
shoeless feet, and thin cheeks showed that he was suffering from the
extreme of poverty. Captain Tracy's well-practised eye convinced him at
once, before the man had spoken, that he was a sailor, and believing
that he came to beg, he put his hand into his pocket to relieve his
necessities, when the man, touching his battered hat, addressed him,
"Plase, yer honour, are you Captain Tracy?"

"I am. What is it you want with me?" asked the captain.

"Shure, I'm glad to hear it, for I've been looking for yer honour for
many a day," answered the man, "as I've made a vow, if you were still in
the land of the living, to give you a message from a dying shipmate, and
my mind couldn't rest aisy till I'd done it."

"What's the message, my friend? Is it a long or a short one?" asked the
captain, eyeing the man steadily, to judge whether he was speaking with
sincerity or uttering a falsehood. "What ship did you belong to, my
friend?"

"The _Fair Rosamond_, yer honour, homeward-bound from Port Royal. We
met with misfortunes from the time of sailing. We had Yellow Jack
aboard us; then a course of foul wind, and when about a hundred leagues
from the chops of the Channel, we were dismasted in a heavy gale; and at
last, after driving about for many a day till we ran short of water and
provisions, we were cast on the coast of Connemara, and only I and three
others got to shore--the captain and the rest of the hands who were left
alive, for Heaven hadn't spared many of them, were washed away and
drowned. I was like to have died too, but some country people took care
of me, and I pulled through; and then, remembering my vow, I set off
without a shiner in my pocket to give the message to yer honour."

"Come in, my friend," said the captain, by this time convinced that the
man was speaking the truth, and becoming anxious to hear what he had got
to say. The stranger looked at his ragged garments and hesitated when
the captain invited him into the parlour, where Norah was seated, and
bade him take a chair; however, plucking up courage, he did as he was
desired. Captain Tracy having briefly told Norah what he had just
heard, turned to the s