“Well, _acushla_,” said the old mother, “go to-morrow, and take a neighbour with you, and open the grave, and see if any thing be asthray. If you find the nightcap or any thing else not as it should be, set it to rights, and close the grave again decently, and he will trouble you no more.” “God send,” was Terry’s brief but emphatic response. Early next morning Terry was at the Boccough’s grave, accompanied by a man of the neighbourhood. The coffin was opened, the corpse examined, and, according to the mother’s prediction, the red nightcap was found knotted tightly under the dead man’s chin. Terry proceeded to unloosen it, and in the act of doing so, a corner of the nightcap gave way, and out peeped a shining golden guinea. “Ah ha!” mentally exclaimed Terry, “that’s no blind nut any how; there’s more where that was, but I had better keep a hard cheek!” So, without seeming to appear any way affected, he opened the knot, closed the coffin, shut up the grave, and departed homewards, without acquainting his comrade with what he had seen. The moment Terry entered his own door, he told his mother about the guinea, and expressed his determination to go that very night, and fetch the red nightcap home with him, “body and bones and all,” “for,” added he, “that guinea has its comrade; and I’ll hold you a halfpenny there’s where the old dog has the ‘lob’ concealed, and that’s what made him order me to have the red cap buried with him.” “_Asthore machree_,” said the mother doubtingly, “won’t you be afraid?” “Afraid!” echoed Terry, “devil a bit--afraid indeed! and my fortune perhaps in the red nightcap.” The mother consented, but enjoined him to tell nobody about the matter for fear of disappointment. Terry vowed implicit obedience, and retired to his usual avocations in the garden. Well, at last the night came, and Terry set about preparing for his strange undertaking. All the arts and prayers and charms of old Kathleen were put in requisition to preserve him from danger; and about the witching hour of twelve, with his spade on his shoulder, and his dhudeen in his mouth, the bold-hearted Terry set forward all alone to the grave-yard, shaping his course by the winding banks of the glassy river, and whistling as he went--not “for want of thought,” however, for never was man’s mind more busily occupied than was Terry’s, in predisposing of the money which he expected to find in the Boccough Ruadh’s nightcap.