hair turning white with fright):--


_The Blind Seal._

About forty years ago a young seal was taken in Clew Bay, and
domesticated in the kitchen of a gentleman whose house was situated on
the sea-shore. It grew apace, became familiar with the servants, and
attached to the house and family; its habits were innocent and gentle,
it played with the children, came at its master's call, and, as the old
man described him to me, was "fond as a dog, and playful as a kitten."

Daily the seal went out to fish, and after providing for his own wants,
frequently brought in a salmon or turbot to his master. His delight in
summer was to bask in the sun, and in winter to lie before the fire, or,
if permitted, creep into the large oven, which at that time formed the
regular appendage of an Irish kitchen.

For four years the seal had been thus domesticated, when, unfortunately,
a disease, called in this country _the crippawn_--a kind of
paralytic affection of the limbs which generally ends fatally--attacked
some black cattle belonging to the master of the house; some died others
became infected, and the customary cure produced by changing them to
drier pasture failed. A wise woman was consulted, and the hag assured
the credulous owner, that the mortality among his cows was occasioned
by his retaining an unclean beast about his habitation--the harmless
and amusing seal. It must be made away with directly, or the crippawn
would continue, and her charms be unequal to avert the malady. The
superstitious wretch consented to the hag's proposal; the seal was put
on board a boat, carried out beyond Clare Island, and there committed to