hilip, if any
sickness whatever was going about, he was sure to catch it. He was a
sort of Irish "Murad the Unlucky," nothing seemed to prosper with him.
His potatoe-crop always fell short--if he took a fancy to keep a few
ducks, or geese, a thieving fox carried them on--his pigs ran away, and
he had not even "the poor man's blessing"--children, to comfort him.
One after another, his babes were borne to the churchyard, and his
cabin was left silent and lonely.

Poor Philip, though a schoolmaster, was not very remarkable for
learning. In truth, he was a good deal behind the times, and his few
scholars, if at all clever, soon got beyond him, and left him. When
his wife was well, she did more than her part toward their support, and
when she was ill, they fared very poorly, I assure you.

One September night, Philip and his wife sat alone in their cabin, more
than usually dejected and sorrowful. They had just buried their last
child--a baby-boy, only a few months old, but as dear to them as though
he had grown to their hearts for years.

There was a terrible storm on the coast that night; the winds almost
shook their old cabin to pieces, and torrents of rain were fast
quenching the peat fire upon the hearth. Suddenly they were startled
by hearing the sound of a gun, above the roaring of the sea. "There's
a ship in distress!" cried Philip--"God help the poor creatures, for
it's an awful night to be on the deep!" "Amen!" said Nelly, solemnly.

Soon after they heard the shouts of fishermen and cottagers, hurrying
to the shore, and, protecting themselves as well as they could, they
joined their neighbors--hoping to do some good upon the beach.

They arrived just in time to see the distressed vessel dashed upon a
rock, and to witness a still more dreadful sight--the falling of a bolt
of fire, from the black sky, right on to the ship--which in a few
moments was enveloped in flames! No boatman, however brave, dared put
out through the wild breakers to rescue the passengers and crew--and in
the morning it was announced along that coast, that an unknown ship had
gone down, in storm and fire, with every soul on board! But no--one
little babe had been taken from the arms of its dead mother, and though
apparently lifeless, was restored, by Nelly O'Flaherty, the
schoolmaster's wife, who took it home to her cabin, where it was doing
well. There was no mark upon the few fragments of clothing which
remained upon the mother a