The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-14

house were for some time afraid to
 clean away. The same. morning the
 young mans sister. who was at home,
 happened to look out in the gray Of early dawn. and saw. as she supposed.
 her brother standing by a rick near the house. Knowing that he had purposed to spend the night at their uncie's, she
 went down to see what could have brought him back so early. But when she got to the rick he was nowhere to be seen. CTo this latter part of the
 story. of course, many parallels could
 be found.)
 The ether story is as follows: One moonlight night a fishing boat was re-
 turning from the herring fishery, when the crew saw behind them. and gradu- ally drawing up to them, boat which
 they had not known to be out at the
 fishing that day It was manned by six
 young men, all of whom they knew and one of whom was brother to one of their own crew. This boat drew nearer land nearer. and seemed to be racing
 with them for the entry to a narrow
 passage between a rock and the shore.
 As they approached this passage the
 two boats were so close that the stroke oars of the second boat seemed to dip
 in the very water whence the bow oars of the first had pust been liften, when, iall at once, the second boat sank and disappeared, leaving no trace behind.
 Two days later boat. manned exactly
 as this second boat had been, was up t-14 -las, fishing. and all the crew were drowned. One man, however. the brother alluded to above, who was fine swimmer, sav-
 ed himself for a few minutes on an iso- Hated rock. His brother and another man were nthe shore when this hap Ipened, and had they had a rope they
 might have saved him: but in very short time a heavy sea struck the rock
 and he was swept away forever. Dur ing the few moments that he clung to the rock he talked quite calmly to his brother and his friend, and told them that all they could do was to pray for him, as he would soon be in eternity This story my informant heard some thirty or forty years later from the brother himself; while as to the phan- tom boat which disappeared it was con- llrmed by two other members of the tcrew of the first boat
 Very different from these weird tales
 of 'revenants" and leath warnings is the following story, which strikingly resembles what is to be found in the lives of various saints. In the sad famine year of 1S47 there lived in vil- ilage on the coast of Donegal a far mer's wife who was very charitable in helping her poorer neighbors. so much
 so. indeed. as to incur at times her husbands displeasure for what he con-
 sidered her excessive liberality. One day the husband had party of his lneighbors to help him to cut his turf.
 This is called in Irish a meithel, a word which in medieval Irish is used | especially of a band of reapers, though also, more generally, of any body of
 men. Qt Is probably aGermanic loan word Anglo-Saxon methel, a meeting or assembly) These men were to have for their breakfast porridge and but termilk from the churning which the women and her little servant maid had ehurned that morning But before the
 men came in from their work the but itermillx had all been given away to
 some of the poorer neighbors, whose
 prayers the good woman was not able to resist, and she went out of the house to escape her husbands anger and the shame of having no buttermilk to set
 before his friends. She went to a lneighbor's house. to whom she told what she had done and why she had come away. After a while she re-
 turned, and asked the little maid
 whether the men had been in to break
 fast She said they had. And what
 cd you give them?' she asked What
 should I give them?" was the answer,
 "but the porridge and the buttermilk
 from the churn?' "But,v said the
 mistress, .'the churn was empty; gave all the buttermilk away while your back was turned.n No replied Ithe servant, the churn was fu1l. and If you look you will find that there Is istill some milk left in it." This story lmy friend told me he had often heard
 both from the servant, who is now
 dead, and from the farmers son, who lis still alive. He added that after this occurrence the husband gave his wife l a much freer hand as regards her Charities than before. We are slow to- l day to admit the possibility of mira 1 cle. But at least let us not doubt that 1 the ancient promise still stands firm as 1 f old: Blessed is he that eonsidereth |the poor and needy, the Lord shall de- iliver him in the time of trouble."-
 Charles Hummer in the Guardian.